


S’abidu non faghet monza

by rroseselavy



Series: Aegis [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers, Italian Isles Hetalia
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Historical, M/M, Original Characters - Freeform, Risorgimento
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-08-18 08:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 77,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8156240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rroseselavy/pseuds/rroseselavy
Summary: "It has been over twenty years. We were promised a constitution and you have not made good of your promise."Some would call it adolescent rebellion. Others call it the unification of the Italian state. An in-depth piece on the Risorgimento. Frying Pangle, AusHun, plus some rather mild Prumano. Due to the nature of the wars for independence and to make this as historically accurate as possible, this fic contains multiple original characters.





	1. Chapter 1

_August 23, year of Our Lord One Thousand, Eight Hundred and Twenty-One A.D._

_The Crowns of Bourbon and Savoy hereby pardon both Signora Serafina Pavone Vargas and Signor Antine Pecora for the crimes of high treason, possession of contraband, and of liberating a political prisoner. As an act of good faith and in recognizing the hopes of the Neapolitan, Sicilian and Sardinian people, the crown of Bourbon and the crown of Savoy promises both The Kingdom of Two Sicilies and Sardinia a possibility of a constitutional monarchy. The crowns hope that the aforementioned individuals will resume their positions in Naples and in Cagliari upon receiving this pardon._

_By the Grace of God and Long Live the Kings._

_Antine cleared his throat and Serafina raised her eyebrow. The decree still sat in the middle of the worn-out table._

_“But are they going to free my husband?” she asked quietly, spreading butter on a piece of hard-earned bread._

_“Didn’t you hear? Romano broke out of his holding cell with nothing but a penknife. Carved his way out of the wall and off he fucked into the countryside. Antonio tried to go after him but…” Antine choked back a giggle, ”he couldn’t do anything about it because he was holding Romano illegally. He’s back in Naples now.”_

_Antine couldn’t help but smile at seeing his cousin’s face light up, a smile that could only be described as validating gracing her face._

_“I love him.”_

_“I know you do.”_

The girl with the validating smile had been replaced by a girl with furrowed brows and a low, raspy voice in the center of the Viceroy’s official hearing room. It was 1848. Nobility tittered about the room, only barely listening to what the Sicilian had to say. Both Lovino Vargas and Antine Pecora were among them, but Lovino was watching his wife and Antine was watching his cousin with increasing intensity.

“You promised us a constitution over two decades ago. My people have been waiting and you have not fulfilled your end of the bargain.”

“Señorita—“ started one noble, who was about to put his wine down and make sure that this little girl knew her place.

“I am a Señora if you will not refer to me as Doña. I am a married woman. You will address me as such,” she responded curtly, turning back to the viceroy.

“Señora,” said the viceroy, measuring his voice. “there is nothing I can do.”

“That is a barefaced _lie_ , there is plenty you can do but it involves you actually leaving your mansion’s walls!”

Other nobles were starting to notice the animated way Serafina was talking and began commenting on it amongst themselves. Who was she to speak in such a way to him? And who was he to tolerate such behavior?

“I have plenty of ideas for a constitution,” she continued, and, to the viceroy’s horror, beginning to pull pages upon pages of hand-written notes out of the lining of her dress. _How long had she been hiding those up there?_ “Have you ever read anything by Rousseau or others speaking on the concept of government? Any Montesquieu, perhaps? Have you looked at all at the Republican ideals talked about with the writings of Aristotle, Plato or Blaise Pascal? I would presume some Machiavelli? I would imagine that you’ve informed yourself pretty heavily on political science, given that you, you know, are a _politician._ ”

“What?”

The Viceroy began to feel the heat of many, _many_ stares on the nape of his powdered neck.

“I mean, yes. Yes, I have. Plenty.”

“Then these really shouldn’t be hard for you!” she chirped, beaming while she handed him some fifty pages. “This should be a good starting point.” 

They both knew damn well that the viceroy had not read anything that the Sicilian had just mentioned. The Sicilian was relishing in it. 

“I…er…I will put these on my desk.”

“I expect to hear back from you about what you think, sir. Sooner rather than later?”

Her smile was as genuine as it was feline.

“Ask her how many grains of sand there are in the universe!” a Neapolitan accented voice called from across the room. The Sardinian next to him burst into laughter.

“ _Avàia_!” she called back, turning around to leave the heavily sweating viceroy and chastise her husband.

The party moved outside and the Sicilian’s notes, no, _manifesto,_ lay threateningly upon the viceroy’s desk. They were just enough in the open that both Lovino and Antine had no problem swiping them for a few minutes while the viceroy was out romancing court ladies in the gardens.

“So this is what she’s been doing for the past few weeks?”

“No, look at how old some of this paper is. Some of these have been written decades ago…you can also tell because some of it is written in Spanish and some of it…” Lovino sighed, “ _most of it,_ unfortunately, is in French.”

Antine tut-tutted into his hand, barely concealing a grin.

“Why do you hate him so much?”

“I have no reason to _like_ him,” said the Neapolitan, flipping casually through his wife’s handwriting, “sometimes it’s as simple as that. Also, I have a habit of not trusting someone who posed such a threat to Nina where she feels the only way out is to stab them.”

“That was in 1282.”

“And he hasn’t given me a reason to forgive him yet,” Lovino retorted. He began to actually read what was in front of him instead of flipping, starting at the beginning.

“Wait…Antine.”

“Yes?”

“Listen to this. ‘Should, as Rousseau postulates, authority derive from the consent of the governed, lack of consent by having an absolute monarchy bypasses the will of the people and therefore causes any consent given by the governed body to derive from fear of the monarch rather than the ideals he is to represent. A constitution functions on the Crown’s behalf by giving the subjects a point of ideals and a point of reference for what the King is to represent other than his right to the Crown.’”

“Nice.”

Lovino let out a low whistle, hopping to sit on the viceroy’s desk.

“’I humbly postulate a confederacy of Italian States, one that, while not compromising the integrity of Italy as a whole and the Kingdoms it comprises, will operate on a much larger scale than all that its previous parts were capable of ever executing.’ I thought she gave up on unifying me and the others?”

“No, Lovi, she’s always wanted you and Feli to be together. She and I started focusing more on getting constitutions before we ever got the chance to really get you any kind of reunion with him.”

“Why is she so fixated on that?”

“I—“

“’By adopting a Constitution of ideals on which all Italian States can agree, the Crown will be strengthened by a unified Italy and all that Italy can provide the State and its Countrymen will be streamlined, resulting in greater power and greater prosperity.’” Lovino put down the paper.

“Shit, Antine.”

“What?”

“I…” Lovino scratched the back of his head. “You worked with Veneziano more than I have.”

“Yes, I have. I was Austro-Hungarian just like he was.”

“What’s…what’s he like? Would he…you know, Venice is a democracy, right?”

“It was, not really paying attention to Venetian politics recently. Why?”

Lovino wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes widened and focused on seemingly nothing.

“Lovino…do you…”

Lovino’s chest heaved with a deep inhale.

“I’m…we should…I want to…I want a constitution too.”

“If she’s getting one, you’re getting one too. But that’s not what you actually want, is it? It’s just icing on the cake for you.”

Lovino wet his lips with the tip of his tongue.

“What do I do to unify Italy?”

Antine didn’t know whether it was a good idea to encourage or discourage his surrogate younger brother and opted to make a noncommittal noise and shrug. The lighter-skinned man got down from his seat on the viceroy’s desk and began to pace out the door.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to talk to my wife,” he called back, cheeks aflame with something Antine knew to be determination but what others might mistake for embarrassment.

~~

  1. Lovino had managed to pick and scrape out every last piece of mortar from the tiny piece of wall, making the only thing keeping the huge bricks in place gravity and Lovino’s one moment of good fortune.



That was about to change.

The monks had gone off for Vespers and Lovino had decided that now was the time to liberate himself from his monastic prison and gave the mortar-free bricks a light push.

Maybe he should have thought that one through; if he’d taken the bricks one by one out of the slats and placed them on the floor, it would have made much less of a noise than the sound of three colossal slabs of stone falling to the ground below his chamber.

He initially cared, but then realized that he didn’t have time to. Because it was time to run.

He was lowering himself out of the newest window in the monastery when he heard the door creak open and he looked directly into a pair of aggressively green eyes. Romano, for the first time in a very long time, did not look away from his caretaker turned captor.

“Bye,” he said, and relinquished his grip on the wall.

Thank God there had been bushes there like he had vaguely assumed when making that decision, because being scraped off of the ground wasn’t his goal in breaking out of house arrest. And thanks be to God that Antonio’s mare knew him well enough to let him climb onto her still saddled back and break into an easy trot down the road. And, finally, thanks be to God that he could turn around and see Antonio, trying to catch him and failing, getting smaller and smaller in the distance, and that Romano had enough of a grip with his legs alone for him to briefly relinquish his hold on the mare’s reins and give him the _mano in fica_ with both of his hands _._

~~

Antine was alone with the papers and realized that perhaps keeping his distance from the viceroy’s desk when the viceroy’s voice seemed to be approaching the door was a better idea than…whatever he was doing.

Serafina wasn’t just going for the constitution. She was going for a pan-Italian state. Or…was she just bringing that whole thing up to make her goal of getting Sicily a constitution more reasonable and significantly less crazy?

He just didn’t know.

He stuffed his hands in his coat pockets and left the room to ponder further before accidentally running into a Spanish lady.

“Excuse me—“

“Antine Pecora?” she asked.

“I am he.”

“Are you the one who was issued a royal pardon that my father spoke of? Back over twenty years ago? You are awfully young,” she tittered, fan brushing her lips.

“It was my father, señora, not I. I am simply a man of the court with a father who had a darker past,” he replied, not ready to get into how long he had been alive for with another human woman.

“How _romantic,_ ” the woman purred. “I hear in Sardinia your people are very tied to the mountains and many of you are shepherds. Was he a shepherd? Was he a revolutionary bandit?”

“Yes. He was the most revolutionary bandit that has ever been a bandit. He wrote poetry about how hard it was to be the only man to have ever stolen things. He invented banditry, you see.” Antine’s face did not buckle or break at all in this entire exchange. “In fact, you cannot call yourself a thief or a bandit unless you have read his entire biography, drink beer to the point that when you are cut you bleed it, swear a blood oath to his namesake, the sheep, and swallow an entire wheel of cheese whole.”

“That doesn’t sound correct.”

“It isn’t. I must be on my way, señora.”

He only broke into a grin after the woman could not see his face. _This_ was why he bothered coming to these sorts of functions in the first place. There was power in the ignorance of others. Power for him, at any rate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Grains of sand in the universe": Reference to Archimedes's treatise "The Sand Reckoner."


	2. Chapter 2

It’s not really certain what year it is. Looking back on the event, he thinks some time in the 16th century, but a much younger and much more frightened Antine stood up with his ribs knife-sharp under his new clothing. His hair was slicked and tied uncomfortably back from his bony face and his large, almost comical glasses somehow remained slightly askew. The boy’s nose jutted and quivered like a stoat’s; his lips were chapped and his shoulders uncomfortably hunched and sloped like an overburdened fishing pole.

“What’s your name again?”

“An—“

“Not _that_ one. We don’t use those names for your kind here,” tsked the attendant.

“…I’m Sardinia.”

“As a ward of the Habsburgs, you recognize your duties within the residence?”

“Yes, sir. I am…a servant and a bookkeeper?” He didn’t actually know what he was doing here. Had he been taken over again?

“Austria will see you shortly.”

“May I sit?” he asked, his Spanish halting, buckling under the buzz he heard in his ears.

“No. He will want to inspect you.”

“Will I see my brother?”

“No.”

“I have to see my brother.”

The attendant was already out of the room, leaving Antine to wipe his nose. _Where was Andria? What was happening?_

All he could remember was going to sleep with Andria no less than a fingertip away from him, his breathing even and soft. His eyes were still slightly rimmed red from tears after having scraped his knees. Andria, whose cheeks were still plump with baby fat and whom Antine had promised to never abandon. Antine had promised that they would always be together.

Antine had woken up in this new building with someone giving him a bath, handing him new clothes and granting him a new sense of having done something wrong.

When Austria came in it was all Antine could do to keep standing.

“Where’s my brother?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” said the Austrian in equally bad Spanish. Antine couldn’t tell if Austria had said something sarcastically or if Austria had genuinely not understood what he had asked. Antine did not have the energy to press the issue. Antine moved towards the Austrian like a worn out wind-up toy, his joints creaking and his muscles trembling from poor maintenance.

“Why am I here, Austria?”

“You’ve been switched over to your brother and I’s house. Corsica has been given back to Genoa.”

“Will this be indefinite?”

Austria looked at him, bemused. Antine’s ears went pink.

“When is it not indefinite?”

If only Austria spoke Catalan; Antine probably spoke better Catalan than even _Antonio_ did. Austria’s hands moved up Antine’s abdomen, pressing lightly with his fingers and making Antine flinch.

“You’ve lost weight. How much have those famines been affecting you, Sardinia?”

Antine finally lost consciousness after trying to hide his weakness for so long, providing Austria with his answer.

He didn’t know how long it had been when he came to, but he awoke on a fainting couch, _augh, really? They have one of those?_ and met eyes with a small, redheaded child that he assumed was Venice. Venice was not shy about standing directly over his face.

“You fainted!”

“I would assume so,” he mumbled wryly, thanking the heavens above that Austria had at least left him his glasses. The little boy’s chin was weak, his cheeks too fat and his eyes squinted in such a way that he didn’t know if they were closed because of his wide smile or if he was secretly glaring at you. His nose poked up imperiously, but the look on his face implied that he wasn’t aware of his own condescension.

“You are Sardinia?”

“Yes.”

“In my language...or, well I guess it's Tuscany's language, so it is my language-to-be, but still... a _sardigna_ is where you put dead animals and garbage!”

Antine’s mouth twisted. _In my language, your name sounds a lot like a certain Spanish disease—_

“I hear in your part of the world you and your people are eating wild ferns and grass.”

Antine’s stomach growled.

“I hope they taste good!” Venice chirped, turning around and straightening his little dress before flouncing off in a state that Antine could only define as semi-calculated obliviousness.

 _I’m too old for this,_ he thought as he closed his eyes again.

~~

More than thirty damn years of being married and he _still_ couldn’t _damn_ resist. As he was walking back to talk to his wife he started to wonder if the idea was just appealing because it had been in her handwriting.

She was at her desk writing…probably the first draft of her own damn Constitution when he pressed his face into the thicket of coal-black curls she called her hair. He planted several kisses to the top of her head before pulling away.

“Nina?”

“Pino?”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m aware,” she said with a happy sigh, blotting her pen and stretching out her wrist. “He’ll never agree if it’s written out like that. It’s worth a shot, though.”

“I read them. The notes you gave to the viceroy. Still warm from being stashed in your _petticoats_ ,” he added, beyond the point of being scandalized by her unladylike behavior and walking the line between acceptance and delight over it.

“You could read my handwriting? It wasn’t too difficult for you?”

She was maybe one of the few people who was intimately aware of how hard it was for him to read; the words flipped and swam in a way that made him slow to absorb meaning and it took him a while to go through documents. Most people didn’t know and just assumed he was a simpleton. He didn’t assign enough value to their opinions to defend himself to them.

“I mean…it looks like a prisoner’s or something I’d find written in a galley—“ he began.

“I’m left-handed, you need to give me a break,” she groaned, leaning back to look up at him.

“But do you think it would work? Like…unifying Italy like that?”

Her shoulders rolled back, the smooth motion and his proximity causing her shoulders to bump into his hips. The clicking noise her back made indicated that she had been crouched over her desk for much longer than the past few minutes.

“I’m not really in contact with the mainland, so it’s more wishful thinking on my part. But you? You would know better than I. How well do you know the other states of Italy? When was the last time you talked to Venice? Isn’t he your little brother?”

“Half brother,” he corrected. “There’s…Genoa, Tuscany, Venice, Lombardy…Papal States…you, me, Sardinia…” he counted off on his fingers. It was hard to keep track; many died or consolidated lands and sometimes those that had been simple city-states had become more than that and ascended to being whole territories. Sometimes it even went the other way and great territories became nothing but cities before dying out.

Oh. _Cities._ He tried to suppress a grin, remembering one of them whom he was missing. “And Milan, Nina. You’ll have to get along with Milan.”

She was holding poisonously still. He could practically taste her displeasure, mercury-thick and bitter, in the air around her.

“I’m going to _fucking_ wring his lily-white neck if he ever comes _near me…”_ she began.

Lovino’s hands went back to brushing through her hair, trying to calm her down a bit before continuing. Maybe mentioning Milan had been a bad idea, but her deep-seated hatred and rivalry with the smaller city-state was something that he found one part adorable and two parts perplexing.

“He won’t, he doesn’t have enough land mass. But… Genoa and Tuscany and Lombardy are getting much older now. Maybe they’ll be the cooler heads that prevail, eh? Younger people like us might—“

“No, that just means they’re going to die soon,” she snorted bluntly, wiping the ink off her hands. “I give them about twenty years.” Lovino started.

“Jesus, Nina, show a _little_ more emotion—“

“What? Don’t chastise me. It’s inevitable. You know I’m right,” she retorted, back clicking more. “If they die, it just means that their states will be inherited by younger and growing powers. Milan will probably inherit Lombardy just like how you were always set to inherit Lazio and the Papal States. Papal States is aging. When he dies, that territory will be yours and your name will actually make sense again.”

“Finally.”

“Finally,” she repeated, looking down at her lap.

“So if we unify…” he started, rubbing his chin and the stubble that was only just beginning to come in, “…that’s a lot of different interests and a lot of different states. Like, look at the difference between me and Venice.”

“That’s the thing, though. If we’re a confederacy, who will pull out to the front? Who is really going to become…well, Italy? Are we all going to keep our identities or are we going to fade away?”

“Well, that’s not the point of a confederacy, right?”

She delicately arched a dark eyebrow, blinked, and exhaled through slightly parted lips.

“It will happen regardless, because that’s what people do and that’s what people…and we are people, really…will always do. Power corrupts. It doesn’t matter how good of a person you are…or were…before you got the power, because it will make you crazy regardless. I just…have you looked at Antonio? He’s losing his empire and his mind at the same time because all that power went to his head. He was a good person before he found the New World, and then he got like _that._ And now the power is going. And it’s taking his _damn brain_ with it _._ ”

“He’s not that bad _,_ really. Not to me, anyway. _”_

“He locked you in a monastery when Antine and I rebelled nearly thirty years ago and seemed to have had every intention of keeping you there forever like some strange, Catholic, and surprisingly sexless _La Belle et La Bête_ scenario. That doesn’t exactly sound like healthy behavior?”

“Who is _belle_ and who is _bête_ here?” Her honey-colored eyes lit up with something Lovino could only describe as a mix between wonder and relief. She’d managed to get two whole words in French out of him. _Two._ There was hope yet.

She got up from her seat to turn around and get a good, proper look at him, taking inventory of each feature, recognizing how each one had changed over the past thirty years and how much had changed since the day she first met him thousands of years prior. She leaned forward, knees pressing into her chair’s cushion, and kissed him. His hands instinctively moved up her waist and gripped gently at her sides.

“Take a guess, smartass.”

“I always knew I was a beautiful princess,” he mumbled, pressing a few more kisses to Sicily’s now smiling mouth. She tasted like coffee and orange peels.

“Lovino, I promise that you are the most beautiful princess in all of the world.”

“Thank you.”

“Are we doing this, then? Are we going to unify your peninsula?”

“Can you maybe use an expression that doesn’t sound like a euphemism for anything?”

“I mean…are we going to occupy your landmass?”

“Nina, I don’t know how you managed it, but somehow you made it worse _._ ”

“Are we, together, unifying Italy, you _fucking—“_

He couldn’t help it. He could feel himself being irritating and could not stop himself.

“What, here? Now? On this desk?”

“Lovino, I swear to whatever God is fashionable currently—“

He somehow managed to stop being obnoxious and get back to being serious with her.

“I agree to do it but maybe…let’s wait a bit? If they’re all about to die it would be good to wait to see who gets what, yeah?”

“That makes sense. In other news…” she turned back to the ink-strewn and bescrawled pages on her writing desk, “…do you want this Constitution or…is this just for myself?”

He bit the top of his lip.

“I, uh…I did initially, but I don’t know if I want to stir the pot like that yet.”

Ever since they were small, she had been the one to start trouble and Lovino had been the one to follow her into the trouble. That pattern was not about to be disrupted here, after him having known and associated himself with her since the times before Christ.

They did not quite know how much that pattern was going to dictate future events. Poor things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes:
> 
> "Wild ferns and grass": reference to the Spanish documentation on one of the multiple famines that ripped through Sardinia. People had no food and literally just began to eat the shrubbery. 
> 
> Sardigna: [Feli was not joking, the little turd.](http://www.grandidizionari.it/Dizionario_Italiano/parola/s/sardigna.aspx?query=sardigna)
> 
> Antine's "Spanish Disease" joke was him trying to make a joke about how "venezia" sounds like the Sardinian word "venerea", which means STDs. 
> 
> La Belle et La Bete: Beauty and the Beast.


	3. Chapter 3

Antine could feel a bead of sweat rolling down his back. He was sitting in an office with Roderich Edelstein and it, if he recalled correctly, was sometime just at the turn of the 17h century.

“Your brother is late,” Austria muttered in German, and Antine wasn’t sure if Austria was quietly blaming him for Antonio’s transgression against the Austrian or if it was conspiratorial between two men who were either chronically punctual or, in the Austrian’s case, always late but never as late as Antonio.

“He, ah, tends to be.” Roderich started at Antine suddenly speaking his language. _So it was the former._ “Probably tuning an instrument or…” Dare he say this sort of thing to his brother’s new spouse? “…dealing with…” _stop fucking talking, you’re only making it worse for yourself—_ “…court intrigue?”

Roderich looked closely at him and he, physically just barely fifteen, could feel his stomach begin to ache. _Butterflies,_ he mused. _Fuck off,_ he berated the muse.

“Your German could be better,” the Austrian sighed.

“I apologize, sir,” he said stiffly. He had only been studying for the past two years. It was hard to get past his half-brother and get some time to himself and to teaching himself a language that was spoken many, _many_ miles away from the court.

“So are you older than Antonio?” _HE IS SOMEHOW STILL TALKING TO ME!_

“Much—“ his voice cracks. He freezes. “I am much older than he.”

“You don’t look it.”

“I inherited my mother’s ageless looks and Antonio did not. It will come in handy when I remain with my mother’s flawless skin and when he, by contrast, ends up like his father and becomes old, fat and bald before his time,” asserts Antine. _Maybe don’t speak ill of Roderich’s spouse to his face? What is wrong with you?_

And then Roderich _smiles._ He is _smiling._ It is a small smile, but it is a _smile._

“I suppose you’re right. And why do you keep your hair like that? In your eyes? Is that something you inherited from your mother too?” _To hide my blushing schoolgirl cheeks, you_ bastard.

“It’s to resemble my namesake.”

Roderich squinted.

“That was a joke, Austria.”

“I didn’t understand it.”

“A sheep has its eyes covered…my last name means sheep?”

“Oh. Sheep.”

“Have you…have you ever seen a sheep?” Roderich’s eyebrows flex briefly. _Of course he has, you idiot. Can you say something normal for once in your life?_ “I just assumed…you don’t really get out much—“

“I have seen a sheep. I have seen several sheep in my time.”

“It’s not actually to look like a sheep. It’s so no one can see my eyes.”

Roderich brushed his hair back and Antine could feel his fingers leave hot trails across the skin of his high forehead. He wanted him to keep those fingers there, the ones he knew would wrap lovingly around a Stradivarius but not around—

“Keep it back. The glasses are enough.”

_Will I ever be enough?_

“I will, sir.”

Antonio walked in the room all soft charm and guitar music-smooth skin and Antine remembered what little he had to offer. It didn’t matter if Antine was older than his little brother; Antonio had aged up faster and Antonio had discovered an entire continent. It didn’t matter what Antine had seen Antonio do or what all Antine had seen Antonio as when he was young. No one cared what Antonio was in the past; they only cared about who he _is_ and who he _will be_ in the scheme of things.

What had Antine done in the past few years, other than herd sheep and stay out of the way of everyone else? He had nothing to offer other than lovely mountains and _nuraghi_ and a pedigree that no longer meant anything. The tightness of Antine’s frame in its discomfort contrasted with the golden, luxurious way Antonio walked and the way Antonio unashamedly kissed Roderich full on the mouth. Antonio is sun-sweet and a beautiful white smile and Roderich is quiet about his enjoyment of him, but enjoying the Spaniard nevertheless.

“Glad you could finally join us, _Spanien._ ”

Antine felt like he was drowning.

~~

It is 1848, or at least, that’s what the calendar is telling him, and Antine is writing something. It is no constitution or victory speech, like what his cousin would invariably pen out after her semi-victory with the viceroy. He was writing a letter to his own monarch.

He wasn’t exactly spying on his cousin and her husband, but after a long time of noticing just how much Sicily could wreak havoc if she wanted to (and she often wanted to), it was usually a good idea to take note of what she did and tell someone if she was doing it. It used to be out of jealousy. Now it had more to do with whether or not he was ready to join in or not, especially after 1821 and all that they’d done together.

_How long have you been alive, Antine?_

Sometimes he would tip his head back and count. He’d been around for every famine, the effects of which had, he believed, made his…growth change, and not necessarily for the worse. No such thing as a good thing unpunished, he supposed. He had been around for the fall of Constantinople. The fall of Rome, he remembered that pretty well. He had personally escaped the sack of Carthage with his mother and younger brother Corsica in a rowboat while the aforementioned uncle and his children, Antine’s cousins, were taken to Rome in chains. From what he’d read in books and what he knew of himself and his memories already, believed he was born between 950 and 850 years before Christ. That would make him close to celebrating his 2,650th birthday in the next few years, he believed. Probably more than that, but he didn’t really know.

 _I’m old as all hell,_ he would usually reply if someone asked him. _I’m older than most writing systems._

He’s writing a letter to his monarch and doesn’t exactly know what he wants to say, other than “maybe we should have a constitution too, given that Sicily just openly declared the necessity for one and when she wants something it ends up that everyone else starts wanting it too.” Also, maybe, if you’re feeling up for it, Your Majesty, give us a parliament that doesn’t suck and a magisterial system that doesn’t make me want to personally claw my eyes out of their sockets and mail them to you. By all means, your Majesty. It will be the most proactive thing you’ve done since appointing me your Nation and not doing much damn else with me other than appear at court events and wave.

But he didn’t write that, because he was a damn coward and while his cousin was the one who made her wants known, he sat on his until he didn’t want them anymore. Squash any impulses flat and never look at them again. Drink to forget. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The Crown of Savoy had chosen him as a resting place and it was something he was grateful for. _Come to me, I can keep you safe for now._ He had known for a long time, even when they had arrived at his shores, that they would not stay for long. He had been stupid to throw his money on their horse and renounce what he had just for a parliament that wasn’t working properly. But he had been too excited to see royalty come for him (if even in the most peripheral way) and for _him._ Marvel at his beautiful forests, talk about how Cagliari was in comparison to Turin and everything they’d seen. It made total sense when he became a Savoyard. Now…now not so much sense.

His hand was beginning to cramp and the ink on his pen was already dry; he had barely written what he had set out to write.

“I…humbly await your response…and hope…that this letter…finds you…well…and in good…health.” _Yeah, Antine. You wish that, absolutely. No sarcasm there. Long live the King._

“Yours…” _Not for long, bitch. Or…I hope not for long. We’ll see._

“Signor Antine Pecora, Human Nation of Sardinia.”

Done. He began to seal the envelope and mark the postage. Maybe now he can actually go outside after a beer or three and enjoy the forests the Savoyard royals had loved so much.

~~

There is never anything good about a Spanish office, which is why they’ve decided to start talking this out on Lovino’s terrace. Antonio was visiting Naples for the first time in a long time; Serafina had been taken back to Palermo to talk with Ferdinand II about what was to be necessary for creating her own constitution and the strengthening of her own local government. Lovino trusted Ferdinand’s hesitance in doing any grievous injury to Serafina and also trusted Serafina to behave herself around royalty when it would benefit her.

It was just them, wine, and Antonio’s tobacco. Lovino had not yet developed a taste for smoking.

“So you opted out of getting your own constitution?” Antonio asked, taking a drag from the cigar.

“I’m waiting, is all.” Lovino recognized the gleam in Antonio’s eye. Not only that gaze, but it was the fact that it was coupled with the languid way he lounged in his chair. His cigar dangling from his fingers, his arms outstretched oh so casually and his legs spread in a way that Antonio thought subtly showed off his well-muscled thighs. He might as well have a fat golden crown on his head and a scepter in the hand that wasn’t holding the burning cigar. _Here we go._

“Waiting for what?”

Those venom green eyes were sparkling dangerously. Lovino was drinking.

“Waiting to see if you would give me one of my own. Maybe even one that unifies the peninsula.”

Antonio’s laugh is maybe one of the only feminine things about him. It is light, high-pitched, and airy. The Spanish man tends to give you the feeling that you have stumbled upon him in the middle of the forest, bedecked with flowers and the sun dappling from behind the tree leaves. This honey-sweet woodland prince looks back at Lovino.

“Not a chance.”

“I thought not.”

“But that’s not really what you’re waiting for, is it?”

Lovino’s hazel eyes narrowed.

“I’ll tell you when I’m ready, damn you, not a minute before or after.”

“Do you remember when our father died?” Antonio asked nonchalantly, flicking the ashes from his cigar and watching the embers fall to the bricks on the ground.

“Wasn’t there, you’d have to ask my little brother.”

“How about your mother? When the Holy Roman Empire—“ Lovino held up one hand, hazel eyes flinty and mouth set in a hard, angry line.

“Please don’t remind me of what he did to her.”

“Well, let me put it this way: have you ever dealt with a civil war? Do you remember being in power while unifying any bit of your territory?”

“I’ve…I remember having it taken away from me, but never fighting for it back.”

“Right. You don’t fight. That’s not really your thing. That’s always been Sicily’s job, no?”

Lovino’s mouth twisted.

“I remember when Spain was unified,” Antonio continues, the sigh coming from between his lips just as calculated to garner maximum sympathy from Lovino as it was necessary to remove the smoke from his lungs. “I remember the blood, the animosity. The chaos, I remember mostly how much chaos there was. I was just a little state back then, freshly upgraded from a fiefdom. Kind of like you, Lovino.”

“I am much more powerful than you were back then.”

“Not by much,” Antonio retorts. “Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that there’s only one of me now. That means it worked, it means that I’m a unified country and there will not be another one Nation representing Spain unless my country somehow splits in half in either ideology or territory. Or both. Usually both.”

Lovino's Spanish began to fail him in his discomfort. 

“If Venice and I—“

“If you unify completely, like I have told you before, there’s only one of you all that will live. Even if you survive, you’re going to survive knowing that it was you that lived while everyone else died. I’m alive, for example, instead of chivalrous Aragon, old man La Mancha or darling, _darling_ Valencia, people who died in my arms because I was getting strong and they weren’t. _Viva!_ ” he chirped, tapping out his cigar again. “How many city-states and territories do you have with Nations assigned to them? Sicily’s already the Nation of all of her island because all the other regions died out in feuds. That’s why she’s going for it, because she has nothing to lose. But you? It’s at least over ten, right? Many, _many_ territories on your end, Lovino. If you live through a civil war with that many people, you will have blood on your hands. There’s no _might have to_ in this scenario _._ You _will_ have to kill people.”

Antonio had gotten up and was leaning over him, his breath smelling of cigar smoke and wine.

“And not a day will go by without you thinking of all those dead people. You won’t be able to sleep at night. If Sicily and Sardinia join the movement, they might die too. Do you really want to be responsible for that?”

His posture changed, his face relaxed. He was changing tactics.

“You and Sicily need different things. She thinks a constitution will solve all your problems. Maybe it will. But, Lovino, are you really going to let her lead you by the nose to dig her grave? To dig yours right next to it?”

“We’d be a constitutional confederacy, not unified under blood but under rights. We won’t make your mistakes.”

That airy, feminine laugh again.

“There are no _rights_ in war, Lovino. There is just the question of being merciful or being self-serving. And let me tell you something: the merciful ones rarely win.”


	4. Chapter 4

The deal was set. It was around 1713 and Sardinia was now an Austro-Hungarian territory, per a deal made by their bosses and without any kind of direct Sardinian input. Antine was not complaining. He did, however, feel like he was about to faint. Again.

_I’m not physically fifteen anymore…I’m grown, I’m capable, and I’m not my brother, and my German’s gotten much better. Maybe? Maybe…no, stop thinking about it._

The sweat pooling under the nose-grips of his glasses was starting to make them slide down. He gulped and loosened his cravat.

“ _¿Està nervioso, hermano?”_ Antine’s gaze flicked back to Antonio, lips parted in something between a snarl and a question.

“It’s really nothing to worry about, Antine. I’ll still be around. I’ll make sure you’re well taken care of.”

Lovino was smirking at him and beckoning him to the stern of the ship.

“If you’ll excuse me, _frade,_ your little ward is asking for me.”

“By all means.”

Antine’s gait was supposed to be leisurely but his dislike of ships and his utter lack of sea legs only seemed to make him more awkward as he walked to the Neapolitan boy.

“What is it?”

“I’m going to teach you about _love._ ”

“Fuck off, you’re like twelve. The only romancing you’ve been doing is to court girls who think you’re cute for being _dumb enough_ to hit on them.”

“Still can actually talk to them and therefore have better game than you, though, so who’s the dumb one now?”

Antine didn’t have any kind of response to that.

“Anyway, I know you like Austria. And I can help you win him!”

“What, like a lottery or a roulette game? He’s a person—“

“Shut up and listen to what I’m telling you: pay him one compliment a day, never more, never less. Too many and you’ll sound like you’re trying too hard. If he tells you to do something with your appearance, only do it a _little_ bit, so that he doesn’t think you want it _too_ much and then—“

“Is this all the shit that you’ve tried and been trying on my cousin and that she’s not having for any amount of money?”

Lovino went beet red and looked down at his new pair of Spanish leather boots.

“What, you think I didn’t know why you wanted to come with us to visit Roderich? You’re dressed _far_ too nicely for just seeing Roderich and your little brother.”

Lovino was still silent and fidgeting with the ribbon tying his beautiful red brocaded cloak to his shoulders. Antine suddenly regretted teasing him about his excitement when Antine himself was easily in the same predicament.

“I’ll take what you’ve said into account. I don’t think…I’m probably not much of a contender, though.”

The Neapolitan boy pressed his hand into his chest in mock surprise.

“You mean you don’t see yourself ever being on Roderich’s beautiful wall of portraits of his exes? Right next to your brother?”

It was true; he happened to somehow have so, _so_ many oil paintings of every person he had been with. They filled up the wall space and Roderich never bothered to take them down, saying that getting new ones would be expensive. Antine could only imagine how awkward that made courtship. Lucky enough for Antine, courting someone he was interested in was already awkward enough, so it couldn’t get much worse.

“I would rather go into a relationship not knowing how it ends.”

Lovino’s eyes glowed, dancing with something that was probably confidence but looked a lot more like conspiratorial glee.

“Ah, but maybe you’ll be the one he stays with!”

Antine burst into laughter.

“Antonio’s been rubbing off on you; you’re full of chivalry novels and courtly romances. You really think that if I place my hand the right way, he’s going to fall head over heels for my…my what, exactly? You keep on thinking that, Lovino. Tell me how it works out.”

They docked in Venetian territory. Venice, apparently, didn’t care enough to actually be present and was probably off painting and pretending to play the violin in Vienna. Lovino was acting like this didn’t bother him, but both Antine and Antonio knew better.

When they finally managed to get through several days of carriage riding and of Antonio quietly smelling awful and blaming it on other things, Antine began to wonder if all of this and all of his leaders’ non-decision was a huge mistake. Maybe he should just go back to Spain and continue being a lackey to someone he was related to?

His mind shut up immediately upon taking a look at the “simple hunting lodge” that Roderich had decided their group and his were to meet at. _I can do this. I can do this for the rest of my life._

Roderich and his entourage were all waiting out in the courtyard. Out of the corner of his eye, Antine noticed Lovino craning his head to take stock of who all was out front.

“She’s probably hiding from you,” he teased, and Lovino went red again. Antine was looking at Roderich and felt his guts churning. _You’re just his handservant. Get a grip._

And…who was…wait, what?

“Genoa’s here?”

“Why is Genoa here…?”

“He probably wanted a free meal and Venice said he could,” snorted Lovino. “Also, honestly, he probably wanted to gloat. He still has Corsica, right?”

“Yeah, he does.”

The carriage stopped, the door opened, and Antine was suddenly not ready again.

“Go get ‘em, lover boy,” cooed Lovino.

“Only when you go get my cousin,” he retorted, giving Lovino’s shoulder a slap, “ _Amlethus Ambrosius, uictor_ _et mulierum fututor!”_

“Antine!” _Hell, I forgot Antonio still speaks Latin._

“Time to be classy.”

“I was born classy,” said Antine.

“We both know that’s a lie,” breathed Lovino as he searched the crowd for his brother and the girl he was trying (and _hilariously_ failing) to woo. Antine was about to tease him for straightening out his pretty, _pretty_ clothes when Genoa clapped him hard on the back, knocking the wind out of him.

“Sardinia, lad, why the long face?”

“My father was a donkey.”

Genoa guffawed, his laugh spluttering out of him like sea foam.

“You’re the only man I know who can call himself the son of an ass with a straight face.”

Antine allowed himself a small smile.

“How was the trip over?”

“Not good.”

“I forget that your brother’s the one with the sea legs. You should get those soon.”

“What, it’s that easy? What’s the secret? Healing prayer? Crushed basil? Old age?”

Genoa took a deep breath through his large nose.

“It only takes a little _practice,”_ he advised, twirling a bit of his salted beard between his fingers. “I could make a seaman out of you in no time.”

“And why would I let you do that?”

“Adventure can’t be found on your own little island, lad. You have to go beyond. You can’t do that hiding out in your little beehive-buildings in the mountains.”

“Those are all my father left me, mind you, so watch yourself. What if I don’t want to go _beyond_? What if I don’t care? What if I don’t want to buy slaves and prostitutes and—“

The Genoese man’s thick gray eyebrows raised.

“That’s only because you haven’t had a taste yet. If you get your own territories, you’ll just want more. You’ll be like me and be one of the _first_ to go to the New World—“

“And now I just have to know: why are you here and not tending to your _empire_?”

“I was invited. And I wanted to send word from Andria.”

Antine wanted to spit and get rid of the bad taste in his mouth. Sadly, this was a high-class establishment and he would probably make a fool of himself.

“What does my brother have to say?”

“He misses you terribly and he hopes you can…how did he put it…get to be on your own soon. He wants to live vicariously through you.”

Antine laughs, but it is not friendly.

“You’re a sick son of a—“

They’re interrupted by a lovely young girl with light brown hair. _Hungary,_ he realizes.

“Sardinia, you’ve grown!” _Damn right I have, missy._

“So have you, Miss Hungary.”

Genoa has been intercepted by a tiny, still round-faced Venice. They’re talking about ships and Antine could not give less of a damn.

“Tell me something, Hungary.”

“Yes?”

“Is Ro—is Austria a harsh master?”

She shrugs.

“It really depends. Keep to yourself and don’t act too personable and you should be fine. Don’t be like your cousin or Venice, either.”

“Why, what are they doing?”

“Venice is a slacker with his chores and Sicily is…well, she’s Sicily.”

Antine peered over to see that Romano had, in fact, found Sicily and was trying to impress her. Sicily, with her hair straightened and looking miserable in her fine French gown, was blushing but trying to give off an aura of not being impressed. This was typical.

“He’s a good person, Austria, he’s just…”

Antine cocked his head and barely suppressed a smile.

“A little much?”

The girl nodded.

“A little much. How is your German?”

“Well, I mean, you tell me. Is it any good?” he responded in the aforementioned language.

“Pretty good! The accent will go with time,” she advised. “I have to go; I suggest you keep a close eye in Venice. He’s…a little off since Holy Rome left.”

Antine’s face softened.

“He has a right to be.”

She shrugged again, brushing her hair back from her face. She really was lovely, he noted, taking note of her fresh green eyes and dainty eyebrows. He suddenly felt self-conscious of his dark skin and wiry black hair. How much was he going to stick out amongst all these light-skinned, fair-eyed people?

“I suppose he does. Anyway…you’re a good man, Sardinia. You will be fine.”

~~

Antine was going through his mail when he happened upon a death notice from the King.

“Who the hell died that I need to be notified of?” he muttered, ripping open the envelope and pulling open the letter before immediately folding it back closed and throwing it away.

It was Genoa. Bernabò Genovese, human Nation of the former Republic of Genoa, was dead. Lombardy was to inherit his territory, and when Lombardy died it would go to his son, Milan.

How many people was that now in open revolt? And there was one in Vienna. The freshly-dead man’s words floated in Antine’s mind. _Start your empire._

Wasn’t it funny how Genoa had died? He had started dying when Antine himself had acquired his lands. Funny, funny, funny. Antine liked to think it was payback for how much he and his little brother had disliked him and how now, wasn’t it great that he could keep Genoa away from his own family just like he had ripped Andria and Antine apart? Just like how he’d—

No.

What Antine had done was wrong. If he’d known Bernabò was dying, Antine would have been kinder.

But Antine had not known, and Bernabò’s words were ringing loud in Antine’s ears. Antine rushed to his room and hunched over his writing desk, spilling ink on his trousers and cursing as his hands twitched around his pen.

_To Carlo Capra, the Human Nation of Lombardy_

_I do not know when the last time we spoke was. Hello. How are you? I know you have recently had a rather unfortunate circumstance of growth in your territory, because Bernabò died. Congratulations on your growth but my condolences for your loss, if losing him is painful for you. I would like to meet with you about possibly becoming allies on the front of unifying Italy. We will help free your son Simone from the Austrians first and foremost._

_Write me back at your earliest convenience._

_Antine Pecora, Human Nation of Sardinia and Piedmont Territories_

This was stupid, he realized, as he stuffed the note into an envelope and began to write what he believed was still Carlo’s address on the front. This was _very_ stupid.

~~

Lovino lay in his bed with the blankets wrapped around his legs.

_Go to Rome._

You cannot _fucking_ go to Rome. You have to wait for Sicily to come back. You owe her that much, damn you. There are riots going on right now in Naples and Puglia. You have a _duty_ to stay here, even though Rome’s your namesake and birthright.

_Go. To. Rome._

His wife was still held up in Palermo, locked in a fight with Ferdinand II and the government that wanted her silent and complacent. Anyone who knew her knew that such a character would be impossible for her to maintain.

_Go to Rome._

The Papal States were his by right; its Living Nation was birthed from the ground and out of a fluke. Once he died, looming and angry, the land—and Romano’s namesake—would be his again. It explained why Papal States had aged so _rapidly_ while Romano remained so pristinely ageless, frozen at somewhere between seventeen and eighteen. Sicily had been right; most of the Human Nations that aged that fast and were still aging were not long for this world. At least they knew that they were going to go…

_Go to Rome._

He was getting dressed. He wrote a letter to his wife, stamped it, and began walking to the door. Pius IX had been a good leader…for the most part. Maybe Lovino could find some inspiration in how he’d reformed and send some ideas to Serafina? Maybe that was why he couldn’t quiet the voice in his head. He was doing his job…right?

_Go to Rome._

“You go to Rome, jackass,” he muttered to the voice, realizing he looked like a lunatic while saddling his horse and not particularly caring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:
> 
> Translations:  
> Està nervioso, hermano (Spanish): Are you nervous, brother?
> 
> Frade (Sardinian): brother 
> 
> Amlethus Ambrosius, uictor et mulierum futator (Latin): Amlethus Ambrosius (Romano's Latin name (PM me about this headcanon, it's one of my favorites)), conquerer and fucker of women


	5. Chapter 5

It was fairly easy to tell which of them was trying the hardest to assert his status as a Kingdom in the face of two Duchies.

Sardinia arrived at the meeting place immaculately dressed; the walking stick he had tucked under his fingers was carved out of fine walnut and had a silver handle garnished with various gemstones. The thing rarely left his house, but right now he felt the tremendous need to overcompensate while meeting the two famous brothers.

Carlo Capra, the Human Nation of Lombardy, was tall. He had other features, but it was what was noticed first by all that saw him for the first time; he towered as he walked into the dimly lit coffeehouse. His nose was maybe the only thing about him that was visibly crooked. A long scar corrupted his cupid’s bow of a mouth.

“Signor Pecora,” he greeted Antine, dark eyes cooler than the water set out on the table.

“Signor Capra,” returned Antine, getting up to shake his hand. Signor Capra ignored the Sardinian’s hand and sat down.

“When is my brother to arrive?”

“I thought he was with you, Signore.”

“No. We decided to come separately. Why did you have us meet here and not at an inn?”

“There is cover in public spaces, Signor Capra. If we all went to your inn, it would arouse suspicion. As if anyone will care much about three men meeting in a coffeehouse to chat?”

Lombardy’s eyebrows raised and his dark eyes closed. Perhaps it was the lighting, or perhaps it was his juxtaposition next to the darker-skinned Sardinian, but he glowed whiter than the candles dripping on the walls.

Bartolo Cecconi, the Human Nation of Tuscany, was as wide as his brother was tall. He hurtled across the room to slam himself into the chair across from Antine. His round chin was hidden by light brown stubble and his beady blue eyes were lit up with a playful sort of arrogance. Lombardy tilted his chin in greeting and Antine found himself suppressing a grin, the one on Bartolo's face apparently contagious.

“Gentlemen!”

A double greeting of “Bartolo” from the two other men, and the meeting commenced.

“Now, how much do we want to put forward for—“

“I want my boy Simone.” Antine stopped. Carlo continued.

“First of all, I want my boy Simone out of Milan. They’re keeping him there.”

Antine reached to touch Carlo’s hand, bedecked with heavy rings. Carlo withdrew his hand from his touch, and Antine pretended he was reaching for the carafe of water instead.

“We will get your son, Carlo. It is the first thing we will do. I promise you.”

The Lombardese man’s eyes glittered.

“We are fighting against Austria, no? If we rebel and fight for the unification, I fear the Austrians will kill him before we ever reach him.”

Antine squinted.

“How do you expect to reach Milan, in a full rebellion at this point, without us declaring war? And if Simone is executed, what makes you think he’ll stay dead? If he's being kept still in Milan, it should be where he's strongest--”

“My lands have been linked to Veneto, who is still kept by Venice. If Simone dies, Venice takes my lands—“

“ _Not_ that Venice as an heir is a bad thing,” tsked Tuscany.

“Oh, come now, we all know you adopted him as an heir because you never had children of your own.” Bartolo's eyes began to narrow. 

“Venice is a kind, capable young—“

“ _Enough_ ,” said Antine, breaking off the fraternal squabble. “How many men are each of you willing to send to make up our armies?”

Lombardy sucked his teeth for a moment, remaining silent while twisting one of his rings.

“I will send a few over six thousand,” said Bartolo.

“Six thousand Tuscans? That will match with my twelve thousand,” replied Antine. “Lombardy?”

“None.”

“None?”

“If we are to fight, it will be on my lands. Not all of us are _kingdoms,_ " he said pointedly, scanning Antine's immaculate suit with a haughty glare. "I will have to reserve my strength and hope to not get too caught up in the fighting. I will still help you, though. I can arrange a volunteer corps, but I cannot send a formal army.”

“No matter, we can hope for aid from Sicily as well. I still must reach out to Parma, Modena and Rome; have either of you heard from Papal States recently?”

“He’s taken ill, so I imagine he has no way of responding to any call for aid.”

“Ill?”

“That Pope has taken a lot out of him, with all those political prisoners being released and all. I think we’re going to all see the last of him soon enough at this rate.”

“Don’t act too happy about it, Bartolo.”

“We’re neighbors. I’d _love_ to see that stuck-up bastard croak.”

“We’re here to unify, not intensify based on borders that may not exist in forty years’ time,” snapped Lombardy. “Papal States will most likely not aid you, Sardinia. He is old and too ready to keep his power to himself.”

“Noted.”

“Write to San Marco and my son. See if they will send aid.”

“Also noted.” _I’m going to write to Rome anyway._ Something gave him the feeling that things were about to change in that area.

“Shall we meet here again, Sardinia? Once we figure our resources, we ought to draft a formal declaration of war against Austria-Hungary. That, however…that should be in private.”

Antine looked up. Lombardy sat angled and cold and his brother hunched forward with an encouraging look on his face. _Can this really go too wrong?_

“Yes.”

~~

There was something about coming back to the Seven Hills that gave Romano a distinct ache, a bizarre sort of hunger in the pit of his stomach. He dismounted and stood in front of the gates of the city he was named for—or was it named for him? He often could not remember, it was all so long ago—and devoured it with his eyes. He had ridden the entire night through, desperate to cut into the six-day journey as much as he could without hurting his horse too much. His muscles were penetrated with the kind of cold you only hear about from clam divers and men far north; it had settled so much into him that he was having a hard time remembering what warmth was. He’d been a fool to only bring his one coat and no gloves. Much to the horse’s dismay, he got back into his saddle and pressed his heels into her sides, urging her forward.

“ _Chiù allà_ , _ammore_ ,” he murmured, wiping the sweat from the line below her mane and flicking it away. “ _Sie pierra cu me?”_

The mare snorted, walking forward in an exhausted form of acceptance. Romano still wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing. He just knew the voice had stopped the minute he’d saddled his poor horse for this sudden trip.

_“Prumisa de ajena.”_

The mare snorted again. The Tiber seemed to glow, almost suffocated under the fog of the early morning. It was the same fog that was now coating the streets in its same translucence, curling up across the lamps and hitching posts to give Romano the very distinct impression that this was all a dream; he would wake up next to his wife and the whole past few months had been nothing but something his mind had created in the fever of his warm bed. Please, oh _please._ He lightly pinched his thigh. No. This was real, his wife was far, _far_ away and so was his bed, because that was just how his life worked out most of the time.

He drew his coat tighter around himself and shivered, finally beginning to search for a place where he could hitch his long-suffering horse and give her the _ajena_ that she deserved. Spain’s words rattled between his ears; he was already running his horse into the ground, was he really ready to take the reins on an entire country?

He turned to the left, dismounted a second time to hitch his horse, and saw the figure walking towards him, recognizing the pure white ensemble immediately. He stopped what he was doing and held _very_ still, keeping his fingers crossed in the hopes that somehow, the man would not notice him. The man noticed him and Romano felt the fear of God in his bones more than he felt the cold robbing the feeling from his fingers.

The Human Nation of the Papal States loomed over Romano like the hour hand of a clock did for a man on death row.

“Don’t recall sending for you, boy.”

“The land did, not the government.” _You know how it is, right?_

“You’re not here for those rebels, are you?”

“Are you?”

“I have better things to do with my time than play Republic. Pius is wasting his time with these reforms. Don’t you agree?”

Papal States’ eyes glowed down at him, gaze tilting down his brutal face effortlessly. It was like he’d made a career for himself of being better than everyone else…oh, right. Because that’s exactly what he’d accomplished. Romano could feel the judgment and it was one of the few that he truly cared about; it was not a good thing to be deemed unworthy by the Papal States.

“Of course, sir. But why are you awake at this hour?” Romano ventured.

“I am on my way to the countryside,” the taller man gave him. “If you were called here, I assume you are here to take over my affairs?”

Romano took a deep breath. _You’re about to lie to the human manifestation of Catholicism. Make it count._

“Yes.”

~~

Maybe it had been stupid to meet Roderich for coffee. Antonio was somewhat regretting putting himself in close quarters with the Austrian, especially after being alone for so long. They had both been passing through the town on business and had decided that it might be a good idea to talk. _Some good ideas don’t stay good,_ thought Antonio ruefully as he slid into the chair.

“How have you been?” Antonio was pumice-smooth and worn to perfection, everything about him calculated for utter comfort. That was how he liked it, and that was what Roderich was getting. In public, at least. Depending on how well this went, it could very much change if one of them went to the other’s hotel room.

“I’ve been well,” Roderich responded, not really smooth but more defined by his absence of tension. Everything he said seemed to slip gently through your fingers like river water, and it was just as likely to carry you off to your death as it was to clean you. Roderich looked down into his coffee cup and sniffed delicately. “I am worn… _thin._ ”

“Thin?” Antonio was _peering_ , always looking for some kind of chink in Roderich’s exterior. Roderich knew this and didn’t particularly care if Antonio found it.

“You know, there are riots in Vienna now. There are all sorts of… _clamors_ about some of my other territories. It is a lot to process and manage. I’m sure you can understand.” Roderich took a sip of his coffee and grimaced. _Too weak, should have just gotten tea._

Antonio had always admired the kind of high class, blue-blooded sort of ease that came with Roderich’s mannerisms; he had always struggled to be that effortless, carry himself with that same sort of milk-fed, housecat delicacy. But Antonio would always prowl instead of stroll and lunge instead of approach. That was just the natural order of things.

“I am… _thin_ as well.”

“Oh? Is this what that bruise on your face is from?” Roderich reached out and gently stroked the bruising under the Spaniard’s eye. Antonio had to keep himself from leaning into the touch.

“I got kicked out of Palermo. Or…I guess punched out of Palermo.” Antonio’s laughter was only slightly forced. “Sicily’s in revolt.”

“So I've heard, but when isn’t she?” 

“She wants her own government. I came in when she started setting one up of her own. She set up a _republic,_ of all things. I told her she was being foolish and she should just go home…she didn’t take it well. I came to on a boat back to Madrid. Don’t worry about me, though, I’m getting reinforcements and heading back in a few weeks.”

Roderich sighed and retracted his hand.

“It will all die down soon.”

“Will it? I don’t think it will. Can’t you feel it, _Rodrigo_?”

“Feel what?”

“It’s in the air. People are talking; it’s like static on wool. _Revolution._ Everyone and their mother and uncle wants their own government. Hell, a government for each person in this room! The soil under their shoes is their sovereign state! Let their dogs each have a government too! Absolute monarchy is dead! Fuck God, throw the King to the innermost circle of Hell—“

“ _Antonio—“_

“I was talking to _Romano_ and even he seemed to be ready to leave me.” Antonio chuckled, looking down at his scarred hands. “They are always so ready to leave. We just went through this twenty years ago. I…” Words began to fail him. They often did. Roderich briefly traced his saucer with his thumb, eyes following the grain on the cheap wooden table.

“Sometimes you must let go. Maybe it’s for the best. They can’t stay yours forever, you know.”

“Are you feeling that way about Venice? Is he going to be one of those ‘someones’ you let go?”

“No. He’s not smart enough to get anywhere yet by himself.” They both knew Roderich was lying.

“If I must let Romano go, you should let Venice go.”

“Why on Earth would I do that? If Venice rebels, I’ll deal with it as I please. If he is not worth the effort, I’ll let him go. But he’s worth the effort. He’s….”

Antonio knew what Roderich was about to say. _He’s practically my son._ Antonio’s chest began to ache.

“I know, Roderich.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: 
> 
> Translations:  
> Chiù allà, ammore (Napoletano): Just a little farther, love.   
> Sie pierra cu me? (Napoletano): Are you mad at me?  
> Prumisa de aveja (Napoletano): I promise (you) oats.
> 
> Yes, he is baby talking his horse in Neapolitan.


	6. Chapter 6

It was the early 18th century (1715, if he recalls correctly) and Antine was sweeping the floor outside while Austria was playing the piano. He had been among the Austrian wards for about two years; sun-draped Spain and his far-off cousin Sicily seemed almost like a fever dream. He spoke nothing but German, ate no Sardinian food, and wore French clothes. Two years after his arrival, and Antine had completely forgotten his place within the framework of Austrian art and had begun to sing while he worked.

He had not started singing at first; he had started with whistling, and then the words of the old hymn slid out from between his lips before he could help himself.

Roderich had been absentmindedly playing when he began to hear a voice singing. He slowly moved his left hand off the keys, only playing the melody to get a better idea of who all was singing like that. It was a low, mahogany sounding voice; it sounded the way Roderich imagined the Earth would sound if it sang a lullaby.

He lifted his other hand off the piano, finally silencing his fingers to figure out who it was. It got closer, rounding the corner…

Antine looked up as he opened the door to realize that Roderich had stopped playing the piano and was, in fact, staring at him.

“…I…” _Fuck, why are you like this,_ “…did I do something wrong?”

“You sing well.”

“I…” _Say thank you._ “Thank you…” _Be polite. “_ …sir.” _Way to act natural, asshole._

“Come here. I want to check something.”

Antine shuffled forward, holding the broom to his chest like a schoolboy held his books.

“You can put the broom down. When I play a note, I want you to match it with your voice.”

“Yes, sir.”

Roderich’s pointer finger pressed down on the C. Antine matched it, following Roderich’s playing with his voice up until Roderich finished. Roderich’s lips pressed into a line before he smacked them thoughtfully, shuffling his sheet music and sniffing before looking back up at his servant. Antine was sweating.

“Sardinien.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You have perfect pitch.”

“I…” _Do I say thank you? If it’s a fact, do I thank him…? Or should I—_ “I’m sorry.” _Wrong thing to say—_

“You needn’t _apologize._ But you will be useful; the pianos must be tuned every now and then, and you will make it much easier.”

“Of course, sir.”

Roderich nodded curtly.

“Get back to work.”

Antine snapped back to attention like a metronome.

“Yes.”

And that was how Antine was promoted from floor-sweeper to Roderich’s page-turner when he played piano. His duties also included tuning the pianos, finding any sheet music Roderich misplaced, and still cleaning up after Roderich if he so asked. He would often find himself doing Venice’s chores when Venice decided that he would rather go up to his room and paint than be helpful. Venice’s disobedience was surprisingly frequent, meaning Antine was often doing the work of at least two people.

“This piece…this requires a lot more than what I can do,” Roderich said to no one in particular one day. Specifically after that point was when Antine started paying far more attention to how Roderich read his sheet music, learning how and which notes corresponded to which dashes on the paper from watching day after day. Maybe one day Roderich would ask. He didn’t think so. But he was allowed to hope.

Venice kept painting; kept waiting quietly at his window and singing nonsense songs. Antine didn’t know much about Holy Rome personally; all he knew was the story about what had happened to Romano’s mother.

“No amount of hoping will make him come back faster,” he said gently to the younger boy at one point. Venice looked up at him with a face that seemed deliberately empty. His eyes were closed and red-rimmed from crying. Antine was always surprised at how deeply different Venice was from his older brother; Romano did not pine so much as assert and preen. Antonio really _had_ made a bit of a Spaniard out of him.

“What if I hope that my hoping works this time?”

Antine gave Venice a soft smile and squeezed his shoulder.  _Been there. Hell, I_ am  _there._

“I mean, you can _try._ ”

Venice let out a wet, hiccupping sort of giggle.

“Then I will try, Sardinia, every day.”

“Noted, and that’s fine. But please get at least some of your work done, okay? I can only do so much.”

“Yes, Sardinia.”

He left Venice alone, turned back and made his way through the currently Roderich-free house (rare, especially lately; Roderich did not pay visits to others and instead spent his time drinking coffee and writing more music). He noticed that not only was the piano room empty…but the complicated piece Roderich had agonized over was perched on the music stand. Could he….

He darted over to look at the piece, then at the piano. It wasn’t that it was impossible…it would just need…

He looked up to see the grand piano in the parlor a good few dozen feet away from the music room. It was one that had wheels; could he possibly just…

He ran across to the parlor and gave the piano an experimental tug towards the music room. 

He could. Oh, _shit. He could._

_Who gave him this power?_

Antine Pecora stood between two grand pianos. Antine Pecora began to wonder if this is what God felt like every day.

He began to press out the melody on one hand, then adding his left. When the piece shifted, he finally moved, straddling the bench, to play with one hand on one piano and one hand on the other.

Antine’s master and the pretty-faced head of staff walked in while Antine was hammering out the song at its apex on two pianos and wearing a face that was as twisted as it was ecstatic.

Antine did not initially notice the two people watching him, too engrossed in his experimentation.

“ _Sardinien.”_

The piano playing stopped with an abrupt splutter of the keys.

“Austria, I—“

“Put the other piano back. Get back to work.”

Antine couldn’t breathe.

“Sir, I—“

“Get back to work. I need a bath drawn, you’ve scraped the wood of the piano and that must be polished now, and the curtains have been left open.”

“…yes, sir.”

He shuffled off, leaving the Hungarian girl and her lord alone.

“Tell a foreigner he has perfect pitch, you leave him for a moment, and then suddenly he can play the piano,” he muttered. “Perhaps he has been with me for too long.”

Elizabeta laughed.

“He’s been tuning them as well. Give him a little more credit; I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm.”

The Austrian hummed, shifting on his feet in a gesture intended to make him seem detached before saying the following:

“You have something in your hair.”

Wanting him to save some face but smiling knowingly, the young woman asked him if he could get it out for her, as she obviously wasn’t able to see it.

Antine came in with the wood polish just as Roderich tenderly laced his fingers through Elizabeta’s long, _lovely_ hair. _Oh._

The servant looked away as she teased the Austrian, straightening her skirts and moving away and out of the room. Antine kept looking down at what he was doing while Roderich lingered, ever thoughtful, where she had left him.

That night Antine sat in front of his mirror with his glasses off and his hair down, trying to run his fingers through the thick wiry curls and patently failing at doing so. His fingers couldn’t even _walk_ through them. _Maybe if I grow my hair out a little longer, it will be nice and straight like Andria’s…or Elizabeta’s._ Or…

He held up a white satin pillowcase to his cheek, quietly noting the contrast. _Is it my skin? Or is it my hair? Is it both?_

_~~_

Austria and Hungary began their courtship with cut roses from Roderich’s garden, stolen kisses when they thought they were alone, and gentle words in the shadows of the house. Elizabeta glowed, rosy and lovely in her newfound affections. Roderich was suddenly gentler with the rest of his attendants; he seemed to almost not mind when things were not in the order he specified. Love was a strong, _strong_ substance, and he seemed to start to take it every morning in lieu of his coffee.

Antine was miserable.

It was 1720 and Austria had summoned Antine to his office.

“I’m sending you away.”

The room got five degrees colder. Antine could feel the lump manifesting in his throat. He was definitely ignoring it, instead leaning forward in the chair and shuffling his feet.

“Why? Did I do something wrong?”

“No. I’m trading you for your cousin.”

 _Sicily?_ Why would he want Sicily?

“I don’t understand.”

“Sardinien,” said Roderich, eyes looking at him over the glasses Antine knew he didn’t actually need, “You are smart. Smart enough to know that your cousin is worth more than you are.”

 _Is this really happening?_ He began to lightly pinch his thigh.

“I don’t—“

Roderich templed his fingers, leaning back in his chair and detaching his gaze from the young man in front of him. 

“You have nothing to offer. You are no one who can be married off to another territory, you have no real money, and you have no resources that we can use. You can speak German and tune a piano on your own, but many others can do that—“

The Sardinian tried to picture his cousin: ten years old the last time he saw her, probably older now. She had all the élan appropriate for that age and all the feral imperiousness of an empress dowager. It was common for people to desire her for her poetry, her pedigree, and her art, but Lord knew at what cost to their stamina. Did Austria know who all he was trading and why these people had so willingly given her up?

“Sicily is _decidedly_ rich. Sicily can be married and can give an heir to the territory. Sicily is a volcanic island and has crops that can be harvested year-round. She has an inheritance and high breeding, moreso than you. You are, frankly…worthless.“

He couldn’t breathe. His mouth was dry and he was, _damn_ it, holding back tears.

“You will be collected tomorrow morning,” Austria concluded, holding a fat stub of sealing wax between the fingers that Antine had wanted to kiss for decades.

_If I throw myself out that window, will I die immediately or will I be brutally injured and have to suffer more than I’m suffering right now?_

“Yes, sir.”

~~

Antine arrived in Cagliari not long after his dismissal and was greeted by an official in Sardinian. Antine, without thinking, responded in German.

“You are no longer one of us,” said the official quietly as he ushered Antine into his old home. “They have made a foreigner of you. You’re just a Continental man now.”

Antine swallowed harshly.

“I am just as Sardinian as I ever was, sir,” he replied in his mother tongue. After seven years of not speaking it, it fit as awkwardly between his lips as a jaw harp. The official seemed to notice this and continued to shake his head in dismay.

~~

Antine got two wedding invitations in the year 1815, nearly a century after Austria had sent him away. One was from Roderich and Elizabeta. While he wished he could be a better man and swallow the quicksilver feeling building in the back of his throat, he did not go to their wedding.

~~

It was 1848. Antine was staring at a piece of paper on his desk, bedecked at the very top with his unmistakable handwriting.

_The Kingdom of Sardinia officially declares War upon the Kingdom of_

He was shaking, he realized. He dropped his pen and rubbed the skin under his eyes, pressed raw by his glasses, flaming hot from the liquor he’d drunk to calm his nerves.

Bartolo was coming in a few hours to discuss troops and mobilization. Bartolo's brother had been strangely silent about his “volunteer corps”. Antine assumed Carlo was only in this to get his son. He still needed to speak with Serafina about her—

Roderich’s voice rang again in his head.

_You are, frankly, worthless._

His eyes began to water and flow hot and fast down his cheeks. He could not wipe the tears away fast enough. They spilled onto the paper, blurring the ink.

_I know. I know._

He coughed, wiped his eyes, and crumpled the piece of paper, throwing it behind him to join the several balls that had met similar fates of being tear-stained before they ever reached full drafthood.

_24 March, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Forty-Eight Years After Christ._

_The Kingdom of Sardinia officially declares War against the Kingdom of Austria._


	7. Chapter 7

She was writing at a window seat a few feet from her desk and smelling of desperation. She sweated out blanks and the coffee on her desk barely masked the scent. You did not have to look at her face to know she was being pulled out, star-shaped, like the skin of a drum.

“Signora?” She jumped, turning around to see who was addressing her before smiling at the old man in front of her. It was only Ruggero.

“Yes, Signor Settimo?”

“The Parliament received letters to be delivered to you immediately.”

“Please put them on my desk. Thank you.”

“Signora?”

“Yes?”

“Should they involve action on our part—“

“I will let you and Parliament know if our services are being demanded by foreign parties, especially if, as I assume, they are from Naples.”

The old man nodded, dark eyes glowing over the dark circles that underlined them. It was maybe the only thing that they physically had in common.

“I will not be running away off the island unless it is mandated by you all.”

“I only clarify due to some…ideas I have heard from others.”

“Oh?”

“There are some that imply that you are making haste to go back to Naples to be with your husband. They believe you have been made…Continental.”

She laughed, black eyebrows crinkling above her closed eyes.

“No more continental than you, Prime Minister, with your _fiercely_ Tuscan name.”

He exhaled loudly through his nose in a manner that imitated a chuckle. She shuffled her papers and strode forward to take the letters from his age-worn hands.

“Please leave me, sir, as if these must be answered then I must do so with haste.”

“Yes, Signora.”

Settimo left her to her own devices and she began to peel open the first letter. She recognized the handwriting style from anywhere; he never wrote words linearly and it often showed if you looked close enough.

_Nina,_

_Given that I am not in Naples to actually see if you wrote me back when I sent my last letter from Naples—_

She bit back a smile, knowing that he wrote the N, P and L and I in “Napoli” before the A and the O due to how crowded out the vowels seemed.

_—I wanted to tell you that I am in Rome, and safely at that. Papal States has decided that I am here to be his errand boy, so I’m doing a lot of his grunt work while he rides off…somewhere? I’m not sure where. I’m almost positive he’s doing something illegal and I’m too afraid to actually ask what. He scares the shit out of me. People wonder why I go to Church every Sunday or why I don’t…Oh, God, stop, don’t make that face—_

She was definitely making that face.

_—I heard the other day on the street that we were getting divorced (how unusual!) and, apparently, it was my idea, and that as a result I was getting excommunicated. A real tragedy. Anyhow, I’m off topic._

She laughed before sighing. She leaned against her desk and reached for her coffee.

_I heard in an eating-house about you did to Spain and how you drove him out of your territory. Many drank in your honor; I wasn’t going to say you were my wife because none of them would believe me. I am sometimes inclined to not believe me, either. But what you’ve done and what your people are doing is something people see hope over; I know it’s not something you can see when you’re in the thick of it, but everyone is watching you. No pressure or anything._

She looked over at what she had been writing prior to being handed her husband’s letter. _Everyone is watching?_ She always performed better under pressure, she supposed.

_So in short, I’m safe and well installed in Rome, there’s probably going to be a coup in a matter of months (if anyone intercepts this, that’s commentary on what I’m seeing and not a declaration of intention. Also, you’re the worst and why are you reading my mail?), Papal States is still alive and kicking, and you’re an inspiration to me and the entire mainland from what I can tell._

_I’m forgetting something. I’ll probably send a second letter with the thing I was forgetting to tell you. Or I will remember what I forgot only to forget it a second time. You know how it is._

_And one more thing._

_I miss you._

_Lovino._

She breathed out through her nose before reaching for the second letter. This letter had been the one marked urgent. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the frantic, spidery scrawl that she recognized to be Antine’s. This could not be good.

_Dear Cousin,_

_So I’m about to declare war on Austria._

She squinted at the paper before realizing that she had read that sentence correctly. 

 _I’m waiting for the declaration’s ink to dry as I write this. I agree with what you wrote and I think now, when everyone has their hackles up and there are riots going on in Austria itself, is the_ perfect _time to kick his ass out of the north. You’ve driven the Spanish out, you know? Why not?_

_I’m losing my mind._

She agreed.

_So I have the support of Lombardy, Tuscany, Venice and the duchies of Parma and Modena. Can I count on you, too? I’m also writing Papal States to see if he will send support troops. Lombary’s sending jack shit because of who he is as a person.—_

Serafina cackled in spite of herself.

_—I am not moving until you say yes or no. Let’s do this together, yeah? Like back in 1821? Don’t leave me with all these northerners, all these mainland people. I’ll lose my mind._

_I humbly await your response._

_A.P._

She took a deep breath and rubbed her temples before grabbing her shawl and running for Settimo, letter grasped firmly in her hands.

Much later, she ran back into her office to finish what she had been working on prior, melting the wax and stamping the envelope. Her nerves had begun to spark.

_Time to start a war._

~~

“How do you stop a country from going into a revolution?”

Francis could not help himself and laughed in Antonio’s face.

“You picked maybe the worst person to ask that question to. I’m living to watch you all squirm right now.”

“You’re so _helpful_ ,” grumbled Antonio, picking a stray thread off of his trousers.

“It’s so nice, you know. Having done something first and being able to look at everyone else failing to do what I did.”

“You’re not exactly having a walk in the park either,” Antonio replied, meeting Francis’s only vaguely insecurity-tinged gaze. He knew that look. Francis knew that Antonio knew that look. “People are losing their minds in Paris as well, right? Didn’t they throw out your king?”

“Yes. We have a republic now, because to _hell_ with Louis-Philippe. If I wanted to be a country run by bankers, I would just ask Vash to trade territories with me. I’m glad to see him gone.“

“You’re really okay with how conservative the policies are turning?” Antonio’s eyes were sparkling in a way that was starting to make Francis somewhat uncomfortable.

“I’ve heard plenty, read even more. Never thought I’d see the day that you’re almost as conservative as _me._ Frankly, I don’t give a fuck about my queen—“

“Lower your voice, _Antoine_ —“ said Francis, eyes darting around the room to see if anyone had paid attention to the Spaniard’s decrying of his own monarch.

“—but I do give a fuck about some semblance of order!”

Francis laughed again, this time genuine and just like the last time, completely at Antonio’s expense.

“You _do **not**_ **.** You are perhaps the most disorganized person I know.”

“In _this_ case, I care about order.”

“Yes, because this is one of the times where the status quo would actually benefit you.”

The door opened.

“Antonio, the Queen wants to speak with you…”

Francis’s eyebrows raised, smiling expectantly in a way that made the attendant shift awkwardly on the heels of his fine shoes.

“And b-bring your friend, I suppose.”

*

Isabella II was a woman who did not like to be kept waiting. The man who was holding the two letters knew this and seemed like he was about to sweat out of his fine wool ensemble when Antonio and Francis walked into the room.

“Your most Catholic Majesty—“

“Must you bring an entourage?” she asked Antonio in French.

“Never fear, your Majesty, I will not speak unless I am spoken to,” replied Francis, folding his hands neatly to sit in his lap.

“Then you have already broken that vow,” replied Isabel coolly before looking back to Antonio. “We received these two letters from Palermo, both in the same hand. One has the face of Medusa as a stamp, the other the peacock. Do you know what this signifies?”

Antonio rubbed his chin before leaning forward and taking a look at the two letters fanned in front of him. 

“The Medusa is used as a stamp for public affairs. The peacock is personal. The Medusa is most likely addressed to you, whereas the peacock…is for me.”

Isabel cleared her throat.

“Señor, please give me the letter with the Medusa. I would like to see what she’s written with my own two eyes.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The first letter was exchanged with the queen, the other pushed across the table to Antonio, and the attendant kept sweating. Isabel cleared her throat a second time and began to read the letter in French.

“ _To Isabella II, the Queen of the Spains._

_As is evident from our expulsion of our Spanish King and your armies, we revolt against your rule and wish to reassert our desire for independence directly to you. The Kingdom of Sicily wishes to formally announce itself as the Republic of Sicily._

_Since your swift departure from our lands in the face of our might (fueled by republican values), we have established a fully functioning parliament. We have drafted our own constitution based off of the one previously given to us in 1815 and then, rapidly and without the consent of the Sicilian people, revoked._

_The Republic of Sicily has already received the support of the Congress Poland, making our status as an independent republic validated by at least one European power. We would like to urge her Majesty to reconsider her ignorance of our independence. We would like to express to her Majesty that while we are a small country, we desire her recognition. If there is no recognition, we would like to formally tell her most Catholic Majesty to prepare herself for war._

_The Kingdom of Sicily humbly awaits her most Catholic Majesty’s reply._

_Serafina Pavone Vargas, Human Nation of the Kingdom of Sicily_.”

Isabel put the letter down, rubbing her strong chin quietly. Antonio noticed how her heavy brow lowered and felt sweat prick at his temples.

“My mother was from Palermo. She spent her childhood in Sicily. She knew Señorita Pavone very well…or I suppose now she is Señora Vargas. My mother said that Señora Vargas was a very strong, spirited young woman.”

A pause. Even Francis began to feel his guts churn. Antonio's own letter burned hot under his fingers and begged to be opened. 

“Her French is excellent,” mused Isabel. “Did you teach her, Antonio?”

“I did,” interjected Francis, breaking his promise to the Queen a second time.

“Ah,” she said, fingering the letter gently, pensively.

A dark, dangerously detached look crossed Queen Isabel’s face as she ripped the page in two, then in four, then in eighths, and continued until the Sicilian girl's declaration was a finely shredded mess in front of her.

“She is strong, I am sure, but we are stronger. Antonio, we are going to send you back with double the amount of men and cannons we had. ‘Republican values’ cannot be trumped by battleships; no amount of Sicilian temper is going to save them from a bayonet. ‘Republican values’…is that what you call a married woman getting into a fist-fight with a soldier, with a rifle on her back? Is that what you call writing a personal letter to the Queen of Spain? If that is what you call calling the Queen a fool in a letter, then I want no Republican values!”

~~

There were four men in the “war room” in Sardinia’s remote homestead in the Piedmontese forest. Sardinia, Lombardy and Tuscany stood with relative ease over the map while Venice (who was now styling himself as _San Marco,_ but none of the other men seemed to care) lingered quietly, unsure of himself amongst the adult nations. He had possibly seen the battlefield more than any of them combined, but was keeping quiet. He was unused to conquering his own territory and preferred to fight at the expense of others. This uncertainty would quickly dissipate, but he did not yet know that.

“I just heard back from Papal States and Sicily,” began Antine. “We can expect aid from both of them.”

“Are they sending their actual nations with the troops, or is it just us four?” asked Bartolo, blue eyes bleary and bloodshot from lack of sleep.

“I know for a fact that Papal States will be with the troops, because he’s leaving Romano… _Naples_ to watch over Rome. Sicily…I’m not sure if the Sicilians will part with her so easily.”

“So we have two old men, one young man, a _child_ —“ Venice, about fifteen, seemed to take offense, “—a preacher, and _possibly_ a housewife?” asked Bartolo.

“…Yes.”

“And we are taking on an empire.”

“Yes.” Antine adjusted his glasses. Carlo snorted and Bartolo wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“If we move quickly, it will be fine,” asserted Antine, drawing a line through Lombardy with his finger. “Cut through this area, bypass forces there—“

“There are already Austrians in position?”

“Yes, because of the revolts. Have you not been paying attention, Bartolo?”

“Not the point. Have they accepted our declaration of war?”

“I have not officially sent it yet.”

“ _Antine—“_

“I am waiting for the right time. It will probably be in a few days. I don’t think they would think that they have to, which is why it is good to strike now. They don’t take us seriously, which is a mistake.”

“Is it?” interjected Venice. Antine shot him a look before continuing, drawing out a trajectory in pencil. Carlo’s face remained illegible.

“Obviously, Lombardy is on our side, given that he is standing right next to me. It will be quick and painless, Carlo. We’ll get Milan, and then Pavia, and then go from there.”

“Milan…” murmured Carlo, quietly twisting the ring on his index finger.

“We will have an ally of him, right?”

“Simone will support anything I support,” said Carlo firmly.

“Okay. If we know what to do, it is not an issue. I would like to wait for Sicily to respond with whether or not she will arrive with forces from the Two Sicilies; Papal States I am not concerned about. His counsel is most likely going to be useless.”

Carlo raised an eyebrow.

“Papal States hasn’t had battle experience since the Crusades. He will not be as useful as someone like Sicily, who regularly drinks blood out of a Frenchman’s skull,” interrupted Venice. “Right, Sardinia?”

Antine didn’t know how to respond to that and so ignored Venice entirely.

“We will wait for Sicily’s response. Regardless of whether or not she is coming, we will strike when we get word from her. The Papal States will catch up—“

“In fifty years or so, if its customs are anything to go by—“ stage-whispered Bartolo, which merited a slap to the shoulder from his older brother.

“—and we will catch the Austrians off guard, covering enough ground that by the time the Austrians get their reinforcements, we will be something to be reckoned with. Sound good?”

“Yes.”

~~

_Pino,_

_I hope this letter finds you still well in Rome. I am leaving Palermo. I cannot tell you when I can write to you again; I am sure Antine has told you why, but I risk too much in sending this letter as it is. I cannot tell you where I am going, only that it is far from here._

_Have you brought the cats to your new house in Rome up from Naples? Please tell me you have somehow arranged for them to be fed on anything other than the mice they are finding in the floors._

_I hope you are taking care of yourself. Please do not worry about me too much. I will be fine._

_I miss you too. Please stay safe._

_Serafina_

 

_Antine,_

_As I just wrote a letter to provoke the Queen of Spain, I can sympathize. I will be coming with a company of a few thousand soldiers. Should all go well, there should be more to come. I hope you understand if I am late…we are somewhat operating with two separate governments and I feel as though I am about to be torn asunder. I’m sure you’ve been in this situation many times._

_In short, I will support you. Tell me where to go and I will follow._

_Yours,_

_S.P.V._

_Antonio,_

_If you come near me or come near my people or lands ever again I will shove my foot so far up your ass that you will taste Palermitan leather for centuries to come. If your shadow knew any better than you did, it would know to not fall on my doorstep._

_Fucking try me. I dare you._

_Serafina._

Serafina was getting on a warship for the first time in _many_ years. The Parliament had decided that her place was fighting, especially after how much her presence during the riots and the expulsion of the Spanish had had an effect. However, at this point her people seemed to think otherwise. Still drunk off of the beauty from the almond blossoms and benefitting beautifully from the nuts themselves, they seemed to find her departure more bittersweet than any kind of symbol of unification or fighting for the liberty of the Italian state.

Even if only a ferry-ride away, the mainland was still separate from her. Therefore the mainland’s issues were separated from her people. Or so her people tended to think. _They’ll understand one day why I have to go. I’m sure they will. I hope they will._

She looked down at her gloved hands, pulling her shawl around her shoulders and shivering. The old burn scars around her wrists and ankles began to pulse and itch.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said off the deck of the ship to no one in particular as the boat detached from the harbor and began to drift across the Strait. “I promise.”


	8. Chapter 8

Antonio sat with the scrap of paper in his hand and a smile that can only be described as naughty bleeding onto his face. The remains of the azure peacock wax seal lay destroyed on his desk.

“See, she told me to try her. Now I have to!”

Francis rolled his eyes.

“Your queen already said you could. I really don’t see why you aren’t throwing your gun over your shoulder and hopping to it already.”

“I didn’t think you’d be so ready to let me go after them. What about protecting Republican values like the ones in your home country? Where are your rights of men and of citizens?”

“What you do with them is none of my business. They are not French anymore…” he said quietly. “If she wishes to be a gadfly, she knows she will be swatted at. Just don’t let her ruin that pretty face of yours. I’ll never forgive you.”

~~

Romano slid into the bar, asking local everyman Paolo di Lazio for coffee and asking for the day’s _avviso._

“Apparently Sicily went off to fight the Austrians,” said Paolo offhandedly. “Volunteer corps and the government both.”

“Did she—did they really?”

“Yep. This…I don’t want to talk to loud…” Paolo looked around the bar before leaning in. “It’s makin’ me kinda…hopeful, you know? Maybe this will finally put us on the right track.”

Romano clapped him familiarly on the arm, grabbing it and giving him a reassuring squeeze with his clasping hand. 

“We’ll see. You see how they’re enlisting people to go off to fight in Lombardy? Do you think you’re going to go?”

“I don’t know. I…I have it pretty good here, you know? I think I might just stay back.”

Romano, physically about eighteen, looked Paolo di Lazio, just barely nineteen, in the eye. Paolo felt frozen to the spot in a way that he could not properly articulate, locked to the bar by Romano’s piercing, soul-searching gaze. It would be a look that Paolo would not forget easily.

“Life is _very_ short. Do what you feel is right.”

~~

You could tell very quickly which one of them had never held a gun before in his life.

“Not even for hunting?” asked Antine of the Papal States.

“Never.”

“He’d break a nail,” called back Bartolo, Carlo’s face getting firmer in response. Both the Lombard and the Tuscan were covered in the thin grime that was the uniform of the foot soldier: a mixture of smoke, dirt, and gunpowder.

“Listen…it’s pretty straightforward, I’m pretty good at riflery so you can just watch me and do as I do.” Antine fired upwards, shattering a tree branch. “Pull the trigger. Reload. All that shit.”

“ _Language,”_ muttered Papal States as he repeated Antine’s movements.

“Practice makes perfect. You’ll want to be amongst the rear troops for this go.”

“So he’s staying back? Who else is staying back? Who’s our medic?”

“Tuscany, you and I will be at the front. Venice and Papal States will be at the back on horseback and Lombardy will be with the medics.” Carlo, being the one out of all of them who had some idea of how tourniquets worked and how to bandage a bullet wound, was becoming accustomed to (if not tired of) playing nursemaid.

“Why not Venice at the front and Tuscany at the back? He’s bigger than Venice.”

“I’m a bigger meat shield,” replied Bartolo, to Venice’s horror.

“I mean, I wouldn’t put it that way—“

“And I’m big, sure, but I’m also _ravishingly_ handsome. If they see a fine, dashing Tuscan man, this _big chunk of_ cinghiale—“

“En- _ough,_ ” chuckled Carlo in a lapse of seriousness.

“—Leading the rebels, the Austrians and that Radetzky bastard will head back over the mountains to where they came from.”

_Wouldn’t say that, either, but it’s neither here nor there._

“We’re close to Milan, aren’t we? Where the hell is your Sicilian friend?” agitated the Lombard.

“She’ll be here in time to take your son back, Carlo. She said she would. I trust her.”

Carlo’s dirt lined face seemed to inflect in affirmation. Venice shot a perfect bull’s eye in a tree trunk, scaring off a flock of pigeons.

“So we have TWO good shots, bare minimum,” muttered Bartolo. “Good to know.”

~~

She was all ready, her boots tucked neatly and her hair spooled into a tight knot at the nape of her neck.

“I’m going out with them.”

Silence. Maybe he hadn’t heard her?

“Tomorrow morning I’m going to fight.”

His chair creaked as he got out of it.

“No, you’re not. I’m going.”

“Roderich, you’re going to kill yourself out there—“

The Austrian looked his wife in her pleading eyes and took her hands in his.

“The declaration was towards _me_. It was The Kingdom of Austria that was addressed by Sardinia. The troops being picked off are mine, not yours. They rebel against _Austria._ I am fighting. Not you. That is not negotiable. I’m not sending you to fight my battles. I have in the past, but this is different.”

She bit her lip. He tilted her chin up and kissed her.

“I know that you want to keep me safe. It’s been what you’ve been doing for so long. I understand. Now let me go, let me protect you. Or try, anyway. It’s about time, no?”

Her arms wrapped around him, clinging close. His hands traced up her back to press her to him.

“I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I’ve had worse. It’s just a rebellion.”

“I mean, have you ever… can you even—“

“For the sake of my pride, please don’t finish that sentence.”

~~

The rebel army was finally just outside of Milan; Serafina had joined them the day before with her forces and they were now twice the size they had been prior. Venice and Sardinia were waiting outside of the encampment for a Milanese company to come and usher them in to liberate the city, and therefore liberate Carlo’s son Simone from where he was imprisoned.

“Antine?”

“Mm.”

“What’s Romano like?”

The Sardinian paused and adjusted his glasses.

“Romano…well, how do you mean?”

“Is he like me?”

“No,” Antine replied, perhaps a little too quickly.

“How is he not like me, then?”

_I actually find him pleasant, for starters._

“He spends a lot more time thinking about what others think of him than you do.” _And what others think, period._

“Is that a good or a bad thing?”

Antine did not know how to navigate this conversation and so decided to close his eyes and spin the steering wheel like he was playing roulette.

“It depends on the situation,” he replied, trying to find the most answering non-answer possible. “He is eager to please, I suppose.”

“Is that why his government’s a shambles and why he’s been licking the dirt off of Antonio’s bootheel for so long?”

He had such an _unassuming_ face for someone who said things like that. It always caught Antine off guard.

“I mean, most of that isn’t his fault. You’re one to talk, what with how you let your territories be linked with Lombardy’s like that—“

“I’m not Roderich’s the way Lovino belongs to Antonio.”

“Lovino doesn’t _belong_ to Spain, he belongs to—“

“Who? To his subordinates, like Sicily and you?”

“He doesn’t _belong_ to me. To me…to me, he’s my…”

Venice’s eyebrows raised, his head tilted, and his lips pursed slightly. The textbook picture of overimposition. For a moment, he looked frighteningly like Roderich.

“What? What is he?”

_He’s a little brother to me._

“He’s close to me, but I would never say he’s my possession. It’s a complicated situation. I’m just trying to figure out what you want me to tell you, Felici—“

“ _San Marco._ ”

“San Marco.”

“What are you doing here, then?”

“I’m…I’m sorry?”

“If you’re not here to conquer Italy, what are you doing? You’ve pulled through half of Lombardy at this rate. You’re a foreigner—“

“I am not a foreigner—“

“You’re a strange man from a strange, faraway island. You don’t speak high Italian and you speak German instead of French. Your dialect is bizarre. You haven’t created art, like Tuscany has. You haven’t any money, like Lombardy. You haven’t any empire, like me, or any history like Sicily. You barely have farmlands to boast like my brother. You have no convictions like Papal States. What are your stakes in this?”

Antine shrugged, hearing Roderich’s voice echo in his head: _Worthless. You’re worthless._

Realizing how harsh he sounded, the younger, redheaded nation began to backtrack. “I mean, I didn’t mean to imply that you have no culture or history—“

“It’s fine. No offense taken.” He turned to look fully at Venice’s face. “You’re smart, Venice. You’ll understand when you’re older. Sometimes things just need to happen, and you have to be the one to do them. It’s called _initiative_.”

A familiar, curly-haired girl walked up to sit next to Antine, and the conversation went back on track. 

"Romano...what can I tell you about your brother Romano? So many things. For starters..."

~~

On the other side of camp and in total opposition to the two unmatching halves waiting for the Milanese company, two brothers were discussing their life plans.

The whole thing had started when Bartolo was shaving and had noticed another hair on his chin was growing in gray.

“It isn’t _fair,_ ” he had whined to no one in particular as Carlo polished his boots.

“Time goes on with or without you, _Bartò_.”

“Of course it does, but that doesn’t mean I can’t bitch about it.”

“Are your bones creaking yet?” called Carlo, thumb running gently up and down the scar on his lip.

“No. Just the beard turning gray and a general sense of worldliness that I didn’t have before. I wonder if I’ll wake up completely silver one of these days. You?”

“My temples are graying, but that’s what tint is for.”

“Oh, don’t be so _vain_ ;” tutted the Tuscan. “A little gray gets plenty of love nowadays.”

“Ah. I forgot that you still think about women.”

“It’s not about if _I_ think about them; it’s about if _they_ think about _me,_ and you know they do. You should get out more; you can’t just sit and count your jewels for the rest of your life.”

Bartolo toweled off his freshly shaved face and looked a good decade younger. It had never grown out of its innocent, schoolboy type of roundness. Carlo’s face was all cheekbone and haughty tilt to make up for it. Bartolo knew there was more to his brother than that, but knew better than to tell people.

“Speaking of the rest of your life…what are we going to do when these young things take our places? I’ve already compiled a list for when Feliciano takes the reins from me. How about you?”

Carlo traced the scar on his lip thoughtfully, twisting the ring on his other hand with an idle thumb.

“Please don’t say you’re going to pine away at Mantua’s grave,” Bartolo said quietly.

“No, no, that’s not what I was going to say. She’s gone. I’ve…I know she’s not coming back. I haven’t really thought about retirement much. I’ve been rather busy lately.”

“ _I’m_ going to retire to San Gimignano and never leave. I will have fresh bread—“

“With or without salt?”

“ _WITH SALT!”_ Bartolo crowed, throwing his razor into the washbasin triumphantly. “It is the greatest lie us Florentine people tell you: that bread without salt tastes good.”

“I know. You’re the first man from Florence I’ve ever met who tells the truth about it. It’s the only way to explain why you salt the _rest_ of your food so gratuitously.”

“I’ll finally get to live full time on my very own vineyard and have rows upon rows of olive trees. It will be wonderful; I’ll have all sorts of pretty girls around—“

“They’ll want to be around you?”

“Shove off, I’m wonderful and you know it. I’ll write poetry. I’ll be a drain on good society until my final day, and then die in my sleep with a good wine still strong on my lips.”

“What, go out with no marriage?”

“I don’t _need_ a wife. I’m not like you; I love as many girls as I please. And all girls please me.”

Carlo was looking down hard at the ring on his index finger.

“The bachelor’s life is not all bad, you know. You can’t stay the rest of your life a widower, Carlo.”

“The bachelor’s life is _plenty_ “bad”. I’m surprised you never learned from your friend Dino. You will end up like Corso Donati at this rate.”

“I haven’t yet.”

“’Yet’ being the operative word, _Bartò_.”

“Anyhow, my love life is not the business of the hour. What do you want to do when you retire?”

Carlo sighed.

“I want to sail and swim in Lake Como.”

“Come on. Find something you’ve never done before.”

“Bartò, I’m serious.”

The wideset man squinted at his brother’s face.

“But you’ve…”

“No. I have never sailed nor swum in Lake Como.”

“Carlo, _I’ve_ swum in Lake Como.”

“I know. I am a disgrace to all Lombards. I have taken Simone to swim there, but I have always waited off the shore with a book or was on the ferry to make a meeting.”

Carlo sat down next to him, blue eyes meeting Carlo’s brown ones in a gaze that was almost serious.

“When this whole war is over, I’ll take you swimming in Lake Como. There’s this one island that you jump off of from. It’s the most fun when you’re piss drunk. I will supply the wine from my retirement vineyard.”

“I…okay.”

“It’s going to happen.”

“Look at my face. I am resigning myself to it.”

“Sound a _little_ more excited, _fratello._ ”

~~

The fearless leader’s ass hurt. Anyone who said riding out of Milan was easy was lying.

“How will we know we’ve reached them?” called one of the other men on horseback.

“We’ll know,” assured their leader, but hadn’t the faintest clue. The faint light of a campfire in the distance gave him some idea of where they were; he was then further clued in by noticing how the moon seemed to reflect slightly off of the dew collecting on the tent-tops.

“That way,” he ordered.

They kept going and finally came across a clearing with three people sitting in front of the encampment. The leader and his comrades instinctively slowed their horses.

There was whispering amongst his companymen.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nations…” murmured one. “Those three people. They’re nations.”

“How do you know?”

“Don’t you feel it?”

The leader’s blood thrilled in his veins. Part of him had thought they were only an urban legend. “Is…is one ours? Is one Sardinia?”

“Get closer…I want to see…”

The leader did not get off his horse, only urging his horse to walk forward and hoping that the firelight would give him some clue as to who was who.

The man’s eyes caught on the tallest one, standing upright with his arms akimbo. Even from decently far away, the man clearly was looking at the leader. The leader could not move, speechless, ears full of the birdcalls from his native territory and nose filling with the smell of tree sap.

“It’s him…” the leader said. “It’s Sardinia.”

“Who are the others?”

“I would recognize Signora Sicily anywhere, even without our Nation next to her,” joked one Neapolitan volunteersman. “She’s the short one with the curly hair. And the other…well…we’ll have to find out, now won’t we? But look at that tuft of hair sticking out from under his hat. I think he might be Venice.”

The man the Milanese company had recognized as Sardinia walked forward, stopping in front of the leader’s horse.

“Nice hat,” he said in dialect, grinning.

“I…Thank you. It’s from South America.”

“Oh! Are you the man back from Uruguay I’ve heard so much about?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Refresh me on your name.”

“Signor…Sardegna, I am Giuseppe Garibaldi.”

“Antine Pecora, but by all means, please refer to me as Antine, Signor Garibaldi. We are amongst brothers here. Come, all of you. Tell me about Milan.”

~~

Dawn always will break, whether one wants it to or not. Time keeps ticking by, whether one wants it to stop or not. Things will have to get done, whether one wants to do them or not.

The seizure of Milan was one of the aforementioned occasions.

Giuseppe had told Antine everything, from how Antine’s own king had treated him to how he had his Brazilian wife waiting for him in Milan with her gun cocked and her eye sharper than ever. Antine was, dare he say it, hopeful. Giuseppe was a man of forty with a level of experience in taking territory back that would make an emperor feel inadequate. The bespectacled man began to feel like what they were doing was possible.

Dawn was breaking. Papal States was cleaning his gun; he and Venice had been practicing all of yesterday. His aim was improving. Venice’s aim was already decently good.

Dawn was breaking. People were beginning to get up and move around. Serafina had just penned a letter to her younger brother in Valletta, telling him it was all going to be fine. She was going to be fine. His cousin and brothers-in-law were going to be fine. There was nothing to worry about. How are you, little brother, are you eating well? And how much is England bothering you these days? I love you. I miss you so.

Dawn was breaking. Venice had to be pulled out of bed by a laughing Tuscany and Lombardy waited outside, twisting the ring on his finger. The skin under the metal had begun to chafe from wear and tear.

They all met in the center of camp before breaking off to command their squadrons: glittering Lombardy, silent Papal States, robust Tuscany, bladelike Sicily, sleep-soft Venice, and finally a rumpled, tightly wound Sardinia.

More people, humans this time. They gathered, cleaned and loaded their guns, got on their horses. It was time to go.

Antine took the front with Bartolo beside him. Papal States stayed in the back with Venice, gun shining on his back. Sicily had decided to ride in the middle with a small corps of Neapolitans and Sicilians. They were all silent.

Milan’s outskirts were easily taken; Antine split off from the main group with the Milanese corps and the other Piedmontese division to go for the center of the city.

“The cathedral,” shouted Lombardy from the back. “go to the Cathedral. They’ll be keeping him there. I’ll join you—“

“You will _hold your position and tend our wounded!”_ called back Tuscany. “I’ll come in a second heat. Go, Antine. Quickly!”

Antine, gun cocked and glasses fogged with smoke, spurred his horse forward.

“I’ll meet you all at the cathedral. I can handle myself, and I trust you all to handle yourselves as well.”

He had never been a city person; Milan was barely navigable enough by the Lombards. His horse quivered as she moved, just as lost in the serpentine streets as he was.

The lost mare turned suddenly into an alleyway, only to plunge directly into an Austrian bayonet. There was shouting, both from her master and from her killers, as the Austrians opened fire on the young islander.

Antine fired right back as he fell to the cobbled streets, hitting a few of them critically. He hurt them enough for the remaining men to sprint in the other direction. Dizzy and on edge, he realized from the blossoming pain in his shoulder that he’d been hit. Clutching the wound and kissing his mare goodbye (poor dear, she had been so good to him), he grabbed his gun and ammunition and started on his way.

He was praying his company had not fallen for the same trap he had.

Bleeding, sweat-soaked Antine finally fell upon “the cathedral”. He now understood why Lombardy had called it “the cathedral” instead of using a name. It was _massive._

_Do I move forward? Into the open square? Am I that stupid?_

He saw a small group of soldiers guarding the entrance.

_Yes._

Bloody, sweat-soaked Antine charged full at the Austrian brigade, gun at his hip and nerves aflame. Each _crack_ of his rifle going off was marked by two others from them, all whizzing by him. _Funny how you’re a world-renowned army, but none of you can shoot right._

“KEEP ON SHOOTING! IT KEEPS ME GOING!” he roared, a sense of _élan_ grabbing him that he didn’t know he’d ever had.

Another group of Austrians, five of them, were coming in from the west. They were both on foot and on horseback. Antine lifted his arm, grimacing at the grinding of his mangled shoulder, to shoot.

His sight faltered, along with any sense of the bloodlust that had fueled him, when he realized he was pointing his gun at Roderich Edelstein. Roderich himself seemed to recognize Antine faltering, muttering something to his companymen. His finger could not squeeze the trigger. His hearing failed to pick up on the hoofbeats behind him.

He was brought back to his senses when Bartolo suddenly reached down and cuffed him from up on his saddle.

“Come back to your senses, lad!” he hissed, firing at the enemy before jumping the gate around the cathedral.

“ _Lovely_ uniforms! But I want to see the embroidery on the back of your jackets!” he cried at the Austrians. The Tuscans roared in approval, firing as well and driving the remaining Austrians, including Roderich, to beat a hasty retreat. Bartolo rode triumphantly up the steps, waving his rifle in the air.

“That shoulder looks nasty,” murmured the Tuscan as Antine walked past him.

“I’ve had worse,” replied the Sardinian as he fumbled with picking one of the cathedral’s locked doors. “Do you think Napoleon is scared from the afterlife? Turning in his grave at all?”

“Why?”

“He might think we’re going to blow his coronation spot to bits,” gritted out Antine as the lock finally succumbed.

The door fell open and the cathedral was bathed in the light of day for the first time in what Antine assumed was a while. The thousands of lit candles choked out any sense of time. He and Bartolo advanced, Bartolo having tied his horse out front.

“Simone?” called the Tuscan.

“ _Shh,_ we don’t know if—“

“I’m here,” they heard from within the chapel. Bartolo raised his eyebrows and grinned. Antine looked back down at the floor.

“Let’s get him before you lose too much blood, eh? Simone, where are you?”

“Bartolo,” called the voice.

“Yes, Simone, that’s me. It’s your uncle. Where are you?”

“No, I mean I am at Bartolo.”

Simone was found tied to the flayed feet of the statue of Saint Bartolo, filthy and face covered in dried blood.

“Come, you’re safe now,” said the Tuscan as he cut Simone’s bindings.

“Where is my father? Do the Austrians have him?”

“No. We have him. He’s playing medic. Come; I think Sicily and the others have made good headway by now in dealing with your… _vermin_ problem.”

Simone, the city of Milan and, if his father’s wishes were granted, future human nation of the Duchy of Lombardy, fell forward into his uncle’s arms.

The battle was won.

~~

The soldiers had all infiltrated the city. The Austrians were beaten back _. Italians_ : Lombards, Romans, Tuscans, Piedmontese, Sicilians, Venetians, Neapolitans alike, all sat in the _piazza_ with donated Lombard wine and a sense of accomplishment.

Serafina was the one who first started to sing, stirring a pot of soup over a fire and nursing a gash to her cheek. The other Sicilians’ ears pricked up at the sound and joined in, a mess of off-key enthusiasm and homesickness. Her heart ached for them, sweet young boys with nothing but their loyalty to her and the clothes on their backs. She wiped her eyes as she hit the chorus, not wanting to seem too sentimental.

Antine, to the chagrin of the tall Lombard bandaging his ruined shoulder, began to drum out a rhythm on his knees and encourage his men to sing in Sardinian.

Someone in the mess of all of this got out a tambourine, another soldier had a wooden flute, and yet another Milanese had a guitar; accompaniment began to be played to the slurry of singing.

Simone sat silently next to his father and stared at the young man who Carlo was bandaging up.

“You’ve gotten taller, Simone,” offered Antine.

The only tall thing Simone had was his opinion of himself. They both knew this.

“Thank you.”

Serafina had been taken off of kitchen duty since the steam of the food had started to make her bandage peel off. Her gait turned from an amble to a strut as more and more people began to celebrate.

People began dancing reels and she twirled about before finally reaching Carlo, grinning and breathless. Carlo reached over to touch up the gauze.

“Antine won’t be dancing with you tonight,” he informed her, “He had a lovely dance already with losing his arm today and I think he’s all worn out. I shan’t dance either, too much work to do.”

Simone sniffed, face clean and shaven after his retrieval and looking only just enough like his father to recognize their relation.

“I’m not dancing with _her_ either.”

She turned to shoot a glare at him, ready to—

“I would be _honored_ to take you to dance, Signora.”

She looked up at Bartolo with a rueful smile.

“I don’t know this one they’re playing.”

“Not a problem. I do.”

Her hand folded neatly into his as he whisked her into the square.

“You will have to excuse my nephew, he’s had a long day.”

The music started up again and he lead their movements, gentle and serious before picking up speed to meet the music.

“You are doing wonderfully, missy. Not a worry.”

 She was either a very good dancer or it was a simple dance. He didn’t really know anymore.

“You’re too kind.”

“I imagine you’d be dancing with your husband if he were here? What a lucky man he is. How is he? Haven’t seen him since he was in dresses.”

They spun, Serafina’s hair whirling above her shoulders with the movement.

“He’s alright, as far as I know. He’s off in Rome doing Papal States’ work. The poor dear, he's really not cut out for the bureaucracy.”

Bartolo Cecconi snorted. 

“So did Papal States enter this conflict just to avoid doing paperwork?”

She burst out laughing. In moments like these it did not take any form of finessing to see her as lovely.

“Likely!”

The dancing went on well into the night, food and wine and music all melding into one warmth that each nation would keep locked away in their chest to treasure when the nights got colder and their cynicism got too sharp to bear.

Much later, Bartolo and Carlo sat in front of the chapel, both too tipsy to admit to being ready to go to sleep. Carlo’s fingers were worn from sewing sutures and Bartolo’s feet ached from dancing reels, both with pretty young Sicilian girls and other drunk Tuscan soldiers.

“She tells me that that _bechino_ only came up to leave her husband with the paperwork.”

“I’m not surprised, but you need to let him be.”

“You also need to get your son in check.”

Carlo’s gaze turned from wine-soft to sharp obsidian.

“Don’t tell me how to raise my son.”

“I’m just saying, he seemed very, _very_ ready to humiliate her in front of all of those people. Nothing good ever came of scorning a girl like that.”

Carlo twisted the ring on his finger.

“Especially if he’s going to inherit your territory…he should learn to be kinder.”

“Even that girl could tell you that nothing good comes from softness for our kind, Bartolo.”

“I never said softness. I said kindness. Kindness has won the favor of many, Carlo,” Bartolo responded, gazing up thoughtfully at the haphazard spires of the chapel. “Kindness has gotten both of us much.”

The scar on Carlo’s lip began to tingle.

“She’s so much like her, Bartolo. I can’t raise my hand to him. I…I can’t.”

Bartolo’s face softened, big hand reaching out to touch Carlo’s narrow wrist.

“If you don’t get him straightened out…someone else will, and it will probably not be a pleasant experience for him. You saw him when I brought him to you. He probably got that way being…testy.”

Carlo glanced up at Bartolo before twisting the ring on his finger.

“I’ll consider what you say.” He got up. “I’m getting some sleep now. There’s a war on, you know.”

Bartolo laughed loudly, full belly heaving with each chortle.

“Really? I never would have noticed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Notes:
> 
> Avviso: something similar to a newspaper in Rome. 
> 
> Cinghiale: wild boar. The symbol of Florence, if not Tuscany (can't recall currently...orz) 
> 
> Bread in Florence traditionally doesn't have salt; it's from a rivalry with Pisa where the Pisans restricted the salt trade. The Florentines allegedly started baking bread with no salt and decided they liked it, so they still bake bread with no salt as a result. Florentine people say they like it if you ask them, but if you ask them enough they admit that it's gross in comparison to salted bread. Like Carlo mentions, Tuscan food tends to not have spice but is VERY salty to make up for the saltless bread! 
> 
> Dino/Corso Donati: The Chronicle of Dino Compagni was a book written in the Renaissance to denounce Florentine people for being so shifty and sinful, ESPECIALLY politicians. Corso Donati was a politician who ended up stabbed by a Catalan man/a Spaniard (depends on who tells the story). 
> 
> Nice hat: Garibaldi lived in South America and dressed like a gaucho to match with his badass wife Anita. He looked pretty fly. 
> 
> The Cathedral: google "milan cathedral." It's that Cathedral. It's enormous. 
> 
> Napoleon: Napoleon was crowned King of Italy in the Milan Cathedral! He loved the building so much; he had the façades created for it at his own expense. 
> 
> Bechino: Tuscan dialect. Means idiot, asshole. 
> 
> THANK YOU for reading!!!!! it means so much to me. It's a lot of research and a lot of embellishment on the source material; Himaruya really didn't/hasn't done this period or Italian history in general any justice.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHA I promise I'll update this regularly soon; I had to write something else for a bit. You will be back on your semi-regular schedule of Revolution(TM) as of now. I hope.   
> Anyway! Thanks for reading!

Time flies when you’re at war. Many months had now passed since they’d first danced in front of the great cathedral. Serafina, Papal States and Antine had remained in Milan while the northerners had left to the battlefields elsewhere in Lombardy to improve the morale of the volunteer soldiers and tend to the wounded. Carlo’s face had grown gaunter as Simone’s skin began to glow; Feliciano’s footsteps grew lighter and springier as Tuscany began to grey further and he began to bow his back and lumber under the weight of his knapsack. Both Antine and Serafina’s skin had turned from glowing, healthy brown to ashen with stress.

“Prayer solves all problems; the Lord is always listening,” said the central Italian nation who had been left behind in Milan. Sicily just gave a chuckle through her nose and Sardinia would nod at Papal States graciously before drinking his eighth weak cup of coffee.

“I have to get out of here,” whispered Serafina once to her cousin before she went to bed.

“Why?”

She leaned in the doorway, casually looking down at him from her compass point of a nose with a purposeful arch to her eyebrow.

“Because I’m actually starting to like it here.”

He looked up and the side of his mouth quirked up in a crooked sort of half-smile. The corner to the frame of his eyeglasses had chipped and gave many of his expressions a lopsided feeling.

“Heaven forbid you actually enjoy something that isn’t Sicilian, eh?”

They both knew she was partially joking. More likely was that she didn’t want to be in a position of owing the Milanese anything for her impromptu stay. They were definitely being treated well; the cause of expelling the Austrians was one supported greatly in the north.

From the letters Antine was getting, Carlo’s son’s wounds from his treatment by the Austrian soldiers had yet to fully heal. This conflict probably ran deeper for him than Serafina could understand. Antine noted to himself to talk to Simone about his relationship with Roderich before this whole thing was over.

Antine was taking a late night stroll when he noticed that Papal States was readying his horse.

“Out for a ride in the countryside, Father?” When Antine had asked Papal States for his human name, Papal States had only looked at him blankly and said he didn’t have one. Instead of giving him one, as it would have been presumptuous and paternalistic, the other nations just referred to him with terms of clergy.

“I’m leaving.”

He stopped, fingers curling into the heel of his palm as he recoiled his friendly wave.

“What?”

Papal States continued to tack his horse, gently brushing through her mane with thick fingers before explaining himself.

“This has gone on long enough, Sardinia. I got word from my master; I agree with him. We, as the Papacy, cannot fight other Catholics. It does not bode well for brother to fight against brother. If we’re of the same faith, then we are of the same mind, and therefore we should be able to find a solution peacefully. I am not hurting any more people of my faith.”

The war was obviously taking its toll on Papal States as well; while he had never had the best constitution, his face was yellowing like paper and his eyes had sunken into his head, staring out at Antine like two blackcurrants under his heavy brow.

Antine squinted behind his glasses, face wrinkling somewhat in confusion and…he hated to admit it…disgust.

“Father?”

“Yes, my son?”

“That is…” _Say it, motherfucker._ “… _such horseshit._ ”

Papal States clucked disapprovingly. Even at nearly three thousand years old, the look Papal States gave was enough for a schoolboy’s blush to bloom across Antine’s narrow face.

“Please don’t use such language. It does nothing to prove your case. I will be leaving momentarily, and my forces will pull out as well. Goodbye, Sardinia. Peace be with you.”

_Peace? I’ll give you a piece—_

Papal States was already riding off by the time Antine decided on what witty retort he was going to use.

Antine’s run was a lot like the rest of him: comical in its academic, oddly sophisticated execution. It looked like he’d read many books about how to run but was in fact running for the first time in that very instant.

That same academic gait was what carried him to Serafina’s quarters. She was reading a letter when he burst through the door.

“What’s this about leaving armies?”

“I just got word from Ferdinand to go back to Sicily…and word from Settimo to stay in Milan. Not sure what to do, so I’ll just stick around for a bit, I guess. Your king has been causing some ripples, you know. Waging war against Catholics and all, for starters, and then not necessarily promising to not steal my lands.”

Antine twitched awkwardly in front of her. She was living for it.

“I have no control over what he does…I know he can be a dick.”

“That’s not the question. Are you going to steal my shit, Antine?”

“I don’t know, do you have anything worth stealing?”

“That’s a stupid question. You know everything I touch is automatically priceless.”

“Maybe two hundred years ago that was true.”

Her lips twisted and she folded the letter up neatly before picking up a pen and her inkwell.

“Rude.”

~~

He was fine with how he was currently. He promised it was all okay. He was all alone and was getting increasingly weird, cryptic letters from Antonio asking for “updates” (whatever the hell that meant; how had Antonio figured out he’d come to Rome and wasn’t back in Naples?) and directions from Papal States on how to proceed, what meetings to go to, how he had to go to confession and how he had to tie his shoes, wipe his ass, breathe.

He was lying. It was not okay.

Agitation ate at his veins like ants ate the dirt. His cousin, his brother, his wife were all out on the Lombardy front and he was here. Waiting. Keeping house, organizing papers and working with a government that he was hating more and more with each passing millisecond. Was there shit he could do? Was there any way he was worth anything other than shuffling papers, dusting shelves, and pretending that his hands weren’t shaking and that he wasn’t touch-starved and emotionally exhausted from pretending to feel fine?

He’d lead in prayer and they’d laugh at him for his accent and how he struggled to read the text at meetings. He had begun to memorize every last piece of text he’d have to “read” for a meeting just because officials would question his literacy in high Italian as he stuttered over the letters swimming on the paper.

His hand tremors had come back full force and he had to bite back a barrage of self-deprecating mutterings each time he dropped something.

He understood why Serafina spent so much time reading. Books tended to be nicer than politicians.

He would sit in a coffeehouse with some old book about Roman government and its history; he wondered if he could somehow replicate any of these…it was too much for him to take otherwise.

How had his father dealt with so many people? How could Romano be present and active amongst Romans, amongst… _Italians_ without losing his mind? Hadn’t his father dealt with it only for so long, drowning himself in wine and art and sex to cope?

Romano bit his thumb gently. Maybe he shouldn’t follow the example of a man who left him in the woods to die as a toddler.

No. These structures worked. It was Rome himself that didn’t work. He would do it _better…_ he knew he could do it better; he had two thousand years under his belt of watching failed governments. He knew what went wrong; he knew how he could fix it.

He’d been accused many times for being a Royalist. It wasn’t that he thought monarchy was the best solution; it was just the path of least resistance to submit to the Spanish king.

But now he was ready to start resisting.

Papal States arrived suddenly in the offices one day, giving Romano just enough time to hide the book in a desk drawer.

“You’re back early,” he said weakly, anxiety thickening his voice.

“Not at all. I will be leaving again in a few days. I do not sense much unease, so I assume all is well?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lovino’s mouth went dry as Papal States’s eyes drilled into him.

“What do you have under your desk?”

“Sir?”

“You’re holding something under your desk. You thought I wouldn’t notice? What’s under the desk?”

_Don’t say political theory—_

“Erotica.”

_What the fuck._

“Do that on your own time instead of in my office and I expect to see you on Sunday. I’ll be…elsewhere. Put that filth away.”

“Y-yes, sir.”

“Please refer to me as Father.”

“…of course, si—Father.”

Papal States gave a curt nod before leaving; Romano almost felt like he was being dismissed to go in his own space. He glanced back down at the book held over his lap; it was erotica, in a way. It was contraband and it was sexy…no, it wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t erotica. He ticked it up to his slow slippage from sanity and opened the book again to a random page. One word jumped out at him in particular:

_Tmiruiuvsrta._

Fuck. Let’s try that again.

_Triumvirtaius._

Close, but not quite…

 _Triumviratus._ Triumvirate. A three-headed republic; it had none of the threats of dictatorship from the sole executive and none of the diluted power of a heavily divided parliamentary system.

He would let his people elect whomever they wanted as the heads of the triumvirate. Maybe then his hands would stop shaking and his mind would start to feel less like it was melting out of his ears, steaming behind his eyes like overcooked rice.

It was a few days later and one minister was looking at him curiously at the end of a meeting. There was something about him that Lovino found to be _disturbingly_ familiar but he didn’t know exactly why.

“Your last name is Vargas?”

“It is the one the government gave me a long time ago.”

“It’s quite _Spanish,_ ” he replied with a tilt of his greying head.

“And your name is _Tuscan_ , Signor Rossi,” he replied with a dirty look. “You ought to change your name to something French; it would fit your duties better, along with your allegiances.”

Rossi sniffed. Where had Lovino _seen_ him before?

“We all know no Romans would elect a Frenchman.”

“That’s why you were _appointed_ , Signor Rossi. We had nothing to do with you.”

“Do you speak any French?”

“Why should I?” Sicily spoke it fluently and easily, but Lovino had never bothered to learn. He didn’t like how it sounded when it stalled and floundered on his tongue. If he didn’t like to speak it the way he spoke his dialects, Spanish, or (when no one was listening) Arabic, why bother with it?

But Rossi’s mention of Lovino’s wife made him recall immediately where he knew Rossi from. Napoleon’s little wedding gift back in 1815. Rossi had been a soldier in the Neapolitan War.

Rossi said something snide and Lovino didn’t catch it, too caught up in remembering maybe the most confusing two months of his life. He realized he was standing alone in the hallway and shook his head quickly, muttering to himself as he gathered his belongings and conscience and made his way to the exit.

The cold of autumn had begun to grip the seven hills and Lovino still wasn’t acclimated enough to deal with it. He found himself wishing that he could leave, like how Papal States had taken to doing, and go back to his house in Naples for a few days. Maybe the city was getting to him; after all those years of living in big houses and farming his own land, living within the city confines was something he was still unaccustomed to.

He was growing. He had to remove his wedding band due to how much his fingers were widening and lengthening. His voice dropped that last bit of childlike softness, the newfound roughness of his voice only emphasized by the Romanesco he was speaking on a regular basis. He itched, writhed, groaned, sweated through his sheets every night and told the maidservant to not worry about it. He was sure that the maidservant thought he was touching himself, but no, it was only vivid dreams of what had happened to him and what he thought was about to happen to him. No real pleasure there.

He was two seconds away from being in one of these twitchy, hot spells when he saw Pellegrino Rossi walking across the Parliament steps. Pellegrino Rossi. Freshly minted Minister of Finance. He was ready to drive every last person in this city to the ground. How Lovino _hated_ him.

His fingertips began to pulse, going for the knife he kept on his belt out of force of habit. He found himself moving forward, catching up and walking up behind the older gentleman. He’d call him a Tuscan, but it would be an insult to other Tuscans. He was a _Frenchman._

He remembered, now, what Signor Rossi had said to him back when they’d spoken so briefly several weeks prior:

 _“I suppose pigs and dirt don’t know much about French._ ”

Rossi looked up into Lovino’s eyes as Lovino drove his knife into his jugular.

_You’re right. I know plenty about the dirt. Buy I’ll bet that you’ll learn better about it when you’re under six feet of it._

The minister fell and Lovino ran before the contents of his stomach could empty out on the square.

When people were called to identify who had murdered the Minister of Finance, all said that it was a man. Several had seen his face, but none could pinpoint it directly other than “a real Roman man.” No one recalled features other than ‘Roman’ ones. The police ultimately booked a man named Gabriele Constantini, ignoring an anonymous plea towards the man’s innocence.

Constantini was promptly executed and Lovino Vargas had gotten away with murder.

~~

Feliciano was struggling to tie his boots and Bartolo thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen.

“Great Venetian empire can’t tie a damn shoelace?” Bartolo guffawed and gave him a nudge. “Bet you had maids to do it for you until now, didn’t you?”

Feliciano flushed and he continued to make a mess of his laces.

“Don’t make a fool of your own successor, Bartolo…” said Carlo offhandedly. _Bar-to-lo,_ Feliciano singsonged to himself as he continued to fail at the task at hand.

“Hey, Bartolo?”

“Mm.”

“Why do you insist on being called that instead of your full name?”

Lombardy tilted his head back to get a look at the young man addressing his brother.

“That is his “real” name. The official writing his birth announcement is Bartolo Cecconi and not Bartolomeo because the officer filed it without finishing it, never correcting the mistake. Much like how our mother raised him.”

“Not like you can say anything, you wannabe Frenchman. I ought to start calling you _Charles._ ” Tuscany got up to pick up the shirt he was washing in the river.

All three had not seen a proper bath in a very long time; bedecked with their own sweat instead of jewelry and smelling more and more like smoke and gunfire than any lovely Northern fragrance. Carlo’s face especially had a thick sheen of oil across of it that only emphasized how pale and tired he was.

“I’m just saying that your name, like everything about you, is overdone.”

“ _Carlo_ , you hurt me more than these Austrian bullets. You would even say that about my language?”

Carlo’s core pulsed in a tight laughter.

“Yes.”

“Say what you want, but I know that it’s because you’re jealous.” Feliciano knew what tangent the Tuscan was going to go on before Bartolo opened his mouth further.

“The _Tuscan_ language is the most _beautiful language_ that the Italian peninsula has to offer. Dante chose to write in it instead of Latin because _he_ saw its value. Someday you will all see it too.” He wrung out his shirt and unfurled it with a flourish, grinning to himself. “Someday I’m sure it will be more widely spoken. Maybe it will replace this ‘high Italian’ nonsense people keep talking about.”

Carlo huffed from his nose and Feliciano rolled his eyes, shrugging his slim schoolboy shoulders. Sure, Bartolo. Think what you please.

“Signor Cecconi?” called a young volunteer. Bartolo’s head jerked up, smile fading and face going from irreverent to solemn.

“Yes, I am he. To whom do I owe the pleasure?”

“A letter from Milan, from Pecora.”

~~

Serafina would recognize the dark green boat seal anywhere. This was from Lovino.

_Nina,_

_I just wanted to talk about—_

Her eyebrows knitted together. Why was this written in Romanesco? She rolled her eyes. He’d forgotten how bad her Roman was again, hadn’t he?

_I just wanted to talk about how my life was going because I miss you so. I have—_

Wait. Why did he write _haju_ instead of _ho_? She quickly scanned the letter. More Sicilian words were interspersed amongst the Romanesco ones. She grabbed her pen and began going through the letter, underlining each word he wrote in Sicilian instead of Romanesco, before reading all the words in Sicilian:

_I killed Pellegrino Rossi. I don’t know what to do. Come to Rome. I will explain when I see you._

She put down the paper and went from standing still to a blur of frantic movement.

“Antine?!”

Maybe five minutes later and Antine was sitting in front of her with the letter in his hands.

“We need to go help him.”

“I agree—“

“Good, let’s—“

“I’m not finished. I can’t just up and abandon my post because my… _friend_ killed a minister.” Antine realized that he had almost said _brother._ Serafina seemed to have noticed but had not commented on it.

“Antine…let me go. I’ve already been summoned back, I can just say I’m on my way home.”

“So you want me to lie to your government?”

“No. Leave the lying to me. I was always better at it than you were, anyhow.”

Antine snorted before adjusting his glasses.

“I will join you eventually. Just not now. This is my war before it was yours, you know.”

She nodded, gingerly taking the letter from Antine’s hands. Antine nodded back, smacking his lips and taking a deep breath. He looked down at his hands, nails bitten down to the quick and fingers full of hangnails.

“Tell him…tell him he’s brave.”

“You know I will.”

~~

Lovino took the first full, unobserved breath he’d taken in a very long time. He’d just gotten a letter from Papal States directing him on the new government that was to be implemented.

“It’s bullshit,” he muttered to himself. There was to be a delegation that the Pope had control over? Even when he and Papal States were settled now in Gaeta?

 _Triumvirate,_ something slunk in the back of his head. _Tri-um-vi-rate._

The question remained: Did he write a letter to the Pope about how stupid this governmental structure was and how the reforms he was rejecting were ultimately going to be his downfall? Or did he just sit here, with Tuscan blood still on his hands, and let the people decide?

He heard people chanting outside: _Blessed is the hand that stabbed the Rossi._ He looked down at his right hand and the knife still strapped to his side. Was it really? He didn’t feel blessed; he just felt afraid.

~~

_Signor Settimo,_

_I would like to formally announce my return from Lombardy. I will be coming home with the last group of official soldiers._

_Yours,_

  1. _P. V._



_Signora Pavone,_

_I understand your need to come home. I look forward to seeing you amongst our brave young men coming home from the Lombard front._

_Yours,_

  1. _Settimo_



_Signora Pavone,_

_Upon seeing that you were not amongst the men, I sent a letter to your cousin in Milan. He told me you were running an errand in Lazio, which I have a hard time believing. Desertion does not seem like you. Will you please confirm or deny? We need you back amongst us soon. Morale weakens; we think the Spanish might be coming to reinstate power._

_Yours,_

  1. _Settimo._



Sicily had no clue how Ruggero knew she was staying at this particular inn, but the innkeeper had walked in with the letter in his worn hands and a confused expression in his dark eyes. “For you, miss.”

“Do you have a pen I could borrow, sir?”

“Yes, you can find a writing desk in your room.”

She walked easier than her cousin did; her gait was a well-practiced glide as opposed to Antine’s well-researched trot.

 

_Signor Settimo,_

_I urge you not to worry. I will be down in Sicily soon. It may be a few weeks or it may be a few months, but I must be here. This is important. I will be back; I promise you that you will see my face and the Republic will know my name again._

_Very best to you,_

_S.P.V._

_Lovino,_

_I am waiting just outside of your territory for Antine to join me. It will be a few days yet. We will enter through the north gate. We are coming!_

_S.P.V._

~~

Lovino sat just outside of Rome’s gates, hands in his coat pockets and shivering lightly. He stood lightly on his toes and craned his neck to get a better idea of who all was coming through. Merchants, farmers, people coming back from their country houses after the harvest, everyone came through here. Finally, just as he was about to go back inside, he saw one lone rider barreling down the road and slowing as they reached the periphery, probably thinking they were going to crash otherwise. He knew that taut posture and black hair anywhere. He walked forward as her horse approached, kissing his wife’s hand for the first time in nearly a year.

“It’s been a long time.”

“Too long,” she said quietly, looking behind her. Lovino took her horse’s reins and started walking them in through the entrance. “Antine got stuck; he’s writing one of his men back in Lombardy. The gaucho one, with the Brazilian wife that I told you about? He said not to wait for him; he got your address off of Papal States awhile back. I intend to rest and then wait up anyway.”

They arrived at the stable and Nina slid off her saddle into Lovino’s waiting arms, kissing him lightly before pulling away to get a good look at him. He’d aged since she’d last seen him. He looked about nineteen to her seventeen. Aging that quickly for a nation either meant a very good thing or a very bad thing, especially when the nation hadn’t reached full adulthood yet.

“You’re so _gaunt_ ,” she muttered, taking his hand. “Let’s go somewhere closed off. Let me feed you.” She checked his hands, tracing his ring finger lightly. “You took it off.”

He pointed to his chest absentmindedly, a chain around his neck glimmering in the winter sun.

“Fingers are too fat now; it’s on me, just elsewhere.”

“Wear it on your toe.”

“My toes aren’t long enough.”

“Well, then you _clearly_ aren’t growing right,” she teased, letting him lead the way to his door.

It opened and she was immediately overwhelmed with the smell of pepper and crushed rosemary.

“No chili peppers?”

“They don’t like that sort of thing here,” he said, taking off his hat and coat. She noticed that his hand was shaking. It dropped from the coat rack and she took it instinctively. She looked up to where the kitchen was.

“Well…I can do _something_ , anyhow.”

She’d been happy to see that he still was baking bread instead of buying it outside. He sat at the other end of the kitchen and watched her cook for him for the first time in eleven months, finally closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the wall.

“Nina.”

“Yes?”

“I need to switch governments.”

“Of course you do. Isn’t that why you killed that Tuscan?”

He hissed and bit back a small sound, clenching his hand gently to quiet the tremors. Even if he’d hated him, he still couldn’t get Rossi’s face out of his mind.

“Sorry…” she mumbled, leaving her cooking to kiss the top of his head. She often forgot that he was not like her; he hadn’t been raised to search and destroy quite the way she had been. He’d been lucky. “What are you thinking?”

“A…a triumvirate. It’s been stuck in my craw, I don’t know. And a parliament and a constitution and—“

“How are you going to get that?”

“I don’t know. But it will be the best _fucking_ triumvirate the world has ever seen.”

She nodded gently, turning back to the stove.

“I know it will be.”

“Will you all help me draft it?”

“Yes.”

Their dinner was quiet; she was tired from travel and she knew Lovino was ill. She could tell by how his legs were bouncing under the table and his temples were matted with sweat. But the real kicker was that while there was all that energy going to his legs and his pores, he still looked like he was about to black out more than she did.

When she went to his bed to rest, he followed her. She curled up against him and noted that he was warm. Too warm.

“You’re getting medicine tomorrow,” she said, wiping sweat from the nape of his neck with her sleeve.

“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled, drifting back off.

Antine knocked on the door some time after the sun had set; Serafina had left her husband sleeping to answer the door and let him in.

“How is he?”

“He wants a republic…no, a _triumvirate._ He doesn’t look good…we got here just in time. There’s a guest room waiting for you. Wash up. Get some rest. I’m…well, I’m going to make sure he’s alright.”

“Don’t burn yourself out, Nina.”

She shrugged.

“I’m already down to the wick. What’s one more night?”

He hung up his coat and went to wash his face. She got another blanket and went back to bed, wrapping him up and kissing him firmly on the forehead. His shivering lessened and his breathing slowed.

“You are so brave,” she breathed, climbing back in to sleep next to him.

~~

Antine was awake first and making coffee on a stove he barely knew how to operate. His hair was a bush of live wires from his consistent running of his hands through it; his glasses, always slightly askew when resting on his somewhat lopsided ears, seemed practically sideways a this point on his face. He’d been at the inn writing letter after letter to those he knew weren’t being listened to by his king. He was starting to think it was time to switch tactics; Radetzky had them playing a losing game of cat and mouse that was only going to end with them all dying by firing squad if they kept it up. Maybe switching fronts was the best idea for keeping their skins?

He heard feet shuffling into the kitchen and looked up from his mangled cuticles to see Lovino. Lovino, with blankets wrapped tightly around his shivering body like an aging warlord, eyes hazy and feverish. He moved forward to sit next to the Sardinian and rest his burning forehead on Antine’s collarbone.

"How are you feeling?"

"Like shit."

“I’m making coffee.”

“I can tell and I want some.”

“There's enough for you.”

Antine got up and poured two small cups, handing Lovino one that Lovino could barely hold in his shaking hands.

“Long live the Triumvirate,” offered Antine with a wry grin.

“Fuck off,” coughed Lovino as he clinked his mug with Antine’s, downing the boiling black coffee in one gulp.


	10. Chapter 10

Rome on New Year’s Eve is something anyone would recommend to you, so long as you can avoid the—

_Thunk._

“STOP THROWING SHIT!”

\--things falling out of windows. Serafina’s face came into view, alight with impish satisfaction. Antine stood in front of the worn out valise on the ground while he tried hiding the fact that he was sulking.

“Get in the spirit, _Tinò_ ,” she responded from inside the dwelling. Lovino called out something to her in Sicilian and Antine knew they were probably saying things he didn’t want to hear anyway.

Lovino’d been getting better since they’d arrived; Antine, however, seemed to have been taking Lovino’s place as the ill one. He knew the war was failing. He didn’t have to look at the news to know. He just had to feel how his bones cracked when he moved and how his dreams were of Radetzky’s face and the smoke of battlefields far, _far_ away.

When the sun finally set they were out in the town with the rest of the Romans. Sardinia felt very self-conscious of how little he could converse. Sicily was only barely better than him; they’d only been here for a few weeks and her and Lovino had been speaking mostly her language and his other, more familiar language of Neapolitan. Lovino was chatting and laughing over offered glasses of prosecco, gleaming… _dazzling_ in the light bouncing off of the Trevi’s marble. He was home.

Romans would ask Lovino who his lovely lady friend was and he would squeeze his arm around her waist and inform them that _this_ was his wife. They would all whoop or whistle and she would smile and offer her hand or cheeks for them to kiss. Antine didn’t get that kind of attention; to the humans here he was still strange and foreign at best, a Piedmont invader at worst.

“You good?” Lovino asked him in Sardinian. He startled, realizing that he had been sitting there silently for nearly the entire duration of the party.

“Yeah, sorry. Lot happening at once, you know?”

“Lighten up, have some prosecco and chat up someone—“

“Can’t speak any Romanesco; they’ll just think I’m going to kidnap them.”

“Here…” he handed Antine his wineglass. “One percent of Romans have originally come from Sardinia. So from a statistic standpoint, at least two Sardinians are here in the square at this moment.”

“Nice math, did you get that from—wait, no, don’t—“

He stood on top of a table and asked the crowd if anyone spoke Sardinian. Antine was ready to jump in the fountain and drown himself. No one ended up speaking any type of Sardinian.

“It was worth a shot.”

“I hate you.”

Romano went off to be…well, _Roman_ , and Antine finished off the forgotten prosecco, face souring at the bubbles. Wine didn’t need bubbles. It was like carbonating cognac; if it was fine on its own, why throw the carbonation in the mix?

“Excuse me?” said a small voice in English. Antine turned to see a mousy young man with a hat pulled low over his eyes.

“Hi, what’s the matter…” Antine was shocked at how willing he was to speak to him. Then again, he was maybe the first person besides Lovino who he could actually talk to.

“Oh, thank _God_ —“ babbled the Englishman, fair face flushing pink. “Is this public?”

“Yes. Do you speak Romanesco?”

“No. I speak French and do a lot of pantomime.”

“That’ll do fine. Go get drunk, and it will be even more respectable.”

He nodded curtly at the wiry-haired Sardinian and went off into the crowd. Antine found himself grinning at the young man’s sloping back. _Have fun._

Serafina was sitting at the fountain when Lovino found her. She was turned away, looking into the water. He sat by her side and when their knees knocked she looked up.

“Are you ready for another year of this?”

“What do you mean?”

She sighed and finished her glass of wine, putting a hand on his.

“You’re overhauling your government. I just overhauled mine a little less than a year ago. Is this what you want? Are you ready to fight for another year—“

_Five, four,_

“—stay with me and Antine and everyone and unify us for another year, maybe longer?”

_Three, two, one!_

He kissed her firmly, his unoccupied hand tilting her chin up. The clock had chimed about three times out of the twelve before he pulled away.

“Yes.”

~~

Lovino was looking at the decree from Pius IX regarding the elections that were to be held today:

“… _any Catholic who votes will be automatically excommunicated…”_

Lovino snorted. This was maybe his fourth time reading the document that Papal States had mailed him. An approximation of it was being nailed around the city at a decreasing rate as the elections grew closer.

He wasn’t yet getting his Triumvirate, instead starting with a Congress. This was fine by him; people ought to walk before they run.

He glanced over only to see that he’d been left a parcel during his mild self-torture over governmental nonsense. He looked for a name on the return address only to see the word VENICE in ornate, _irritating_ handwriting. He realized that his little brother probably didn’t know about his…issues with reading. Honestly he wasn’t sure if he was going to ever tell him; since the war started, Venice had been sending him letters at an increasing rate. Romano often replied with equally long and personal letters, wanting to have a close relationship with Venice and wanting to give himself some idea of who his brother was outside of being the person his father wanted over him. His fingers clawed open the twine and brown paper and found a ball of fabric and a letter attached.

_Romano,_

_Tuscany and I heard about what you’re doing in Rome! We thought your new government should have a new flag. It matches mine and Tuscany’s, too! Sicily’s got one like it too now, no? It’s just the tricolor, so you can put something else in the white bit. Or leave it blank. Whatever you want to do!_

_Congrats on your upcoming elections and we’re all proud of you. Show them how tough we mainland Italians can be, eh? (That was Tuscany.)_

_Anyhow, it is really getting difficult on the front lines. We’re not organized enough and we don’t have enough power now that Papal States and Sicily are pulled out. If we can’t pull through here, then maybe you can do it better!_

_I hope you like your new flag! Long live the Republic!_

_Venice (and Tuscany)._

He unfurled the bundle of cloth. Green, white and red silk. Had Feliciano sewed this in some camp in Lombardy? He bit back a grin and went to the window. The first thing the Assembly was going to decide was what to put on the white.

~~

_Francis,_

_I’m writing to you with a burning question. It’s not you, you didn’t do anything wrong…that I know of. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong._

_Basically what I want to know is how you went from authoritarian to republican government? Was it easy? I doubt it was; it hasn’t been easy for me. But that has a lot more to do with what I’ll just call “external factors.”_

_But when drafting my constitution it was always hard to see what I was missing. If, hypothetically, someone were drafting a new constitution, what would you say are the things that they must not ignore?_

_Thank you and I hope this letter finds you well!_

_S.P.V._

_~~_

Antine knocked on Lovino’s office door.

“Come in,” and he obliged.

“I’m going to leave.”

The nib of Lovino’s pen bent. Lovino looked up with a lost-puppy sort of betrayal.

“What?”

“I need to go be back with my people. My army. I’m not well while I’m here. You know, I know. It’s necessary.”

Lovino nodded, fiddling with the nib of his pen and getting black ink on his fingers.

“I trust you can find your way on your own?”

“Yes.”

“Please be safe, Antine. Do you want to take Sicily with you?”

“She has no place in Lombardy anymore. She belongs here. Or…really, she belongs with her young government in Palermo, but try telling _her_ that.”

Lovino grinned and wiped his hands with a handkerchief.

“Okay. Get the hell out of my office. I will see you again, won’t I?”

Antine turned back to look at him and get a good look at the concern in those wide, downward sloping hazel eyes.

“You ought to.”

~~

_My dear Séraphine,_

_I am well, if not very busy. Your signature always makes me laugh because I keep misreading it and thinking that you are signing off all of your letters with “Please”._

_I know what this is about. I can’t help you. I am forbidden from it explicitly. I apologize._

_Yours,_

_Francis._

_~~_

“They took Mortara.”

Antine started. He’d only just gotten back into the fray and wasn’t necessarily in full military mode. He squinted at Wojciech and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“What do you mean?”

“The Austrians violated the armistice and took Mortara. Those _bastards—_ that Radetzky has no damn sense of honor.”

“He’s too old for games,” sighed Antine while biting off his last sliver of chewable nail on his thumb. “How do you think he got this far otherwise?”

“Fair enough,” said the Wojciech. “We still have to kick his ass.”

Antine was always somewhat wary of the Pole, who hadn’t done his prior benefactors any favors. But Charles Albert thought he was good enough to be a military commander, and Antine wasn’t about to pick a fight with him; Wojciech looked just as ready to buy you a drink as bite your ears off. God only knew what Wojciech would say if he knew of how Antine spoke fluent German and not a lick of French.

Wojciech was staring at him and Antine was feeling his heartbeat lower than where it should have been. Antine did not engage and continued to look down at the map.

“Then we should mobilize. Alert everyone. We’ll drop kick Radetzky off of our land for once and for all.”

“Judging by the way they’re moving, we should meet them at…” Wojciech traced the map with a loving finger, “Novara.”

Antine nodded, adjusting his glasses and his uniform.

“It’s twenty-eight miles from Milan. Send a notice to Simone and Carlo. They should get ready in case there’s an offshoot.”

Antine had not been prepared for Novara. He had gone in with a fire in his belly and a grin on his face. He had not been ready for a Bohemian soldier’s bullet burrowing into his gut, putting out that fire and knocking him off of his horse and under the cavalry’s hooves. He got up after having lost consciousness, holding his belly as blood and matter oozed from between his fingers. _Find cover._

A cannonball rocketed over his head, blowing into the tree beside him. _Run, you bastard!_

“Retreat,” he croaked, knowing that there was no one left to retreat to begin with. Where was everyone?

Roderich held the spyglass up to his eye, seeing the lone Sardinian wobbling in the back.

“Do I put him out of his misery, sir?”

The Austrian folded up the spyglass and sighed.

“No. I'm sure he’ll die of sepsis soon enough. Let’s go home.”

Antine would later find out that he lost over five hundred people that day, three times that number being wounded. He wandered back to what was left of the Sardinian forces by chance, slumping to his knees at the foot of the encampment.

Wojciech walked up as a medic stripped Antine from the waist up.

“Charles Albert abdicated. We’re on our own.”

Antine closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sharp pain in his head instead of the hot feeling of his shredded insides fighting to leave his chest cavity.

~~

She was sitting in the Assembly building next to her husband and everyone was speaking Romanesco. She sat silently, not speaking well enough to express anything she could think about government.

“If Novara is lost, and Turin is next, we must announce a new government and solidify our power over the State—“ asserted one politician.

“Here are my proposals,” started Lovino, silencing the entire room. His presence had given them all a sort of validity that couldn’t be granted by any sort of piece of paper. He was happy that at least someone found his presence soothing, because he didn’t find his own presence comforting at all.

“First of all, freedom of religion.”

There was murmuring amongst the politicians, all clamoring amongst themselves about how the Pope wouldn’t approve—

“The Pope has no reason to be involved in our government. He’s perfectly capable of leading the church, but has no business in the Republic. Church and State should be separate. As such, religious freedoms for all; we had freedom for Judaism as well as Catholicism, but Muslims and others should be protected as well.”

He waited for them to die down. Serafina looked down at her hands, but anyone could see that her face was glowing.

“There should be aid given to the homeless. Land should be taken from the Church and distributed to the poor.”

This was somehow more easily accepted than the idea of the separation of church and state, if only by a marginal degree. Lovino turned to look at his wife’s neck, biting his lip. Her eyes lowered as her hand reached up to touch where the _garrote_ had squeezed nearly thirty years ago.

“Capital punishment should be abolished.”

He felt soothed by the _scritch scritch_ of pens on paper.

“And finally, a _Triumvirate._ It will be the quickest way to pass legislation without having an absolutist government. Three men that we can all choose to lead the country properly. I, personally…” He looked at a man across the room, “…nominate Mazzini to be one of the three.”

There was a call of approval amongst the Assembly members.

“What about the two others, Signor Vargas?”

“I’m not appointing them personally; I think it should be up to you all. But I would also suggest Saffi and Armellini.”

The Assembly decided to have a vote. Serafina knew enough Romanesco to know that Lovino was getting exactly what he wanted. He sat back down and put his hands under the desk, putting a hand on her knee.

“You did it,” she whispered.

“Not yet,” he replied, eyes firmly set on the center of the room. “I’ve still got to wait for the vote.”

That day, the Roman _Triumvirate_ was declared. Wine bottles were opened all around Rome; the _tricolore_ was displayed across windows, with Lovino’s slogan of “ _Dio e Popolo_ ” emblazoned across the white section of the flag. They sung the new Roman anthem in the streets as he waved the flag with unshaking hands, an irrepressible smile plastered across his face. He had never felt better.

~~

Serafina sat in the early spring air peeling an apple on the top of Rome’s walls. She looked up to throw a peel over the edge when she saw the entourage coming towards the gate.

“Lovino?”

He was sitting a bit below her and trying to cleanly break open a pomegranate. He was not succeeding; the juice was getting all over his hands.

“Yes?”

“We have company.”

Lovino was down just in time to greet Antine, Bartolo, Carlo and Feliciano at the entrance to the city. Antine was sweating heavily, shirt stained with what looked like blood from a slightly reopened wound on his stomach.

“Why not bring the rest of the continent with you, Antine?” teased Lovino. Antine shook his head and Lovino’s smile faded, taking the reins and leading him in. The others followed silently. When Antine had to get down from the horse, Bartolo had gotten off quickly to assist him.

“Get him to bed,” said Lovino to Serafina, watching her and Carlo walk to his house. “Get all these people in and make sure they’ve got baths and a bed to sleep in. Use the old bishop quarters,” he said to a young man working on the estate. The man went quickly to work and Lovino finally turned to Bartolo.

“What the hell happened?”

“What _happened_ was that we didn’t have any real force behind our armies anymore once Father Almighty and your wife decided to leave, so we had to beat a retreat,” said Bartolo, shifting his shoulders back tiredly. His body was almost too big for him to carry. “You’re our last shot at a real Italian government. You really think we were going to let that slip through our hands like that? Anyhow, we can talk more later. You need to go tend to your friend. Carlo can’t do it on his own, you know; he’s a doctor, not a sorcerer.”

Lovino breathed a quick “yessir” and ran back into his own house. Carlo was sitting in the living room next to the fireplace with bandages, water, (provided by Lovino’s wife, who had made herself scarce looking for herbs), and supplies for sewing Antine’s stomach back into place.

“Can I help?”

“Yes. Hold my ring.”

He noticed the bottle of brandy sitting in an official capacity right next to the linen.

“What’s the alcohol for?”

“Me,” replied the Sardinian, who was sweating bullets as Carlo peeled back the old bandages, slick with blood and discharge.

“Get me a tumbler; I’m going to put the water back in the fire so I can sterilize the needle.”

“Yes, sir.” Lovino ran back into the kitchen for a glass. Serafina was sitting next to the small herb garden hanging out of the kitchen window and visibly shaking.

“I didn’t know he’d been hurt that badly….”

He kissed her quickly on the temple, tilting her face to look at him.

“He’ll be fine. It will all be fine.”

He burst back into the living room as Carlo was taking the sterilized needle out of the water.

“Take that water off the fire, Lovino. It’ll have to cool down for a bit before I can use it to clean him up.”

“Yes.”

Antine groaned when the needle pierced his hot, angry skin, clenching his hands and gasping for the brandy. Lovino decided that now was maybe the time to have a conversation; if there was a story, maybe Carlo would relax and Antine would focus more on the storytelling than his pain.

“Carlo, why do you wear this ring?”

Carlo continued to work, eyes softening.

“It was the ring I gave my wife. Do you two know how I got the scar on my lip?”

“No?”

“I first saw Mantua when I was a young man. I instantly fell in love with her. It was hard not to; she was stunning, kind, lovely. I gave her that signet ring as a token of my affection the first time I saw her. She accepted it…”

Antine’s breath was beginning to even out as he listened to Carlo’s even, metered tone of voice.

“…and when I went home I had almost forgotten about it. Well, _forget_ isn’t quite the right word; I forgot that what I’d done was a bit sudden and a bit boorish. So I open my door and her father was standing there with my signet ring on his hand. And he punched me in the face with the hand that was wearing my ring.”

Lovino couldn’t help but start laughing.

“Sorry—“

“No, don’t be, it’s funny.” Antine took another stiff drink of brandy. “I’m sure you can understand how much wives are important? I’d take the same punch in the face again if I did it over. I’m sure you’d do the same for your wife?”

“I have already.”

“Right. But it goes for all things that are important in life; if you want something bad, you need to think about what you would take for it. Nothing is free in this life, boys. Remember that. And you, Lovino, with this new government of yours: are you ready to get a punch in the face with a signet ring for it?”

Lovino nodded solemnly. Carlo finished stitching, calling Serafina for the poultice.

“What…what happened to your wife, Carlo?”

His eyes lowered as he unfurled and began to cut the bandages to match Antine’s torso.

“Tuberculosis. It was a fluke. We’re not supposed to die from human illness, but…she just slipped away. No one knows why. I’ve been trying to rationalize it, figure it out, but there really was no sense in her going. I’ve just accepted it. The day after her funeral I took Simone to get inoculated. He will not meet the same fate as her.”

He looked up, those obsidian eyes meeting Lovino’s hazel ones.

“And neither will you, boy.”

“Yes, sir.”

~~

Roderich sat across from Papal States and Antonio in a small office in Gaeta. Roderich was struggling to breathe.

“That little _brat_ is selling my land to laity—“

“Well, we’re going to put a stop to it, so it’s fine. You’ll get your land back, Papal States. Please, we get it, it’s a pressing issue. Antonio, how goes the front with Sicily?”

“I’ve been outside of the fighting, actually. Isabel decided I would be better suited in court with my thumb up my ass—“

Papal States’ glare was enough to make Antonio’s soul consider leaving his body.

“The Sardinians that managed to escape the Piedmont front have formed a Legion outside of Rome. If we go in quickly, it should be fine.”

“What, in the dead of night? Slit their throats? Doesn’t seem like you, Roderich.”

“Three days of blood will give us thirty years of peace. Seems worth it to me.”

Antonio scratched his unshaven chin.

“I will join you, then, whenever that is.”

“So all three of us will take Rome?”

Antonio shrugged.

“Seems a tad disproportionate; I almost want to root for the Italians. I’ll ask others if they want to jump in as well.” Antonio chuckled, scratching the back of his head. “All this talk about blood and death…I feel like a dime novel villain.”

“If one likes power, one must get accustomed to maintaining it.” Roderich retorted, standing up to open a window. “So I can count on you gentlemen to come and help me retake Italy if they will not come quietly?”

“Yes.”

~~

Serafina and Feliciano had been cooking and feeding the refugee soldiers all day to make up for not having enough blankets for all of them. Thankfully, Romans were very kind about this sort of thing and were taking some of the soldiers into their homes. Feliciano had been helping her recruit; he spoke Tuscan, which she didn’t, and charmed the natives a lot easier than she could.

The rest of her time was spent with Antine, who was healing up nicely but still had nightmares that kept her running from her husband’s bed to his at night with soothing words and another pillow for him to hold.

Feliciano had hoped that he’d have more time to be with his older brother and understand him. They’d had a correspondence now for a long time and he’d hoped that, somehow, they would have a few spare minutes where both of them were not busy to talk about things. This’d had yet to happen; Romano had a city to run and Feliciano had soldiers to feed.

Feliciano sat with Carlo and Bartolo under a tree, savoring a donated bottle of wine in the spring sun in a singular moment of peace. Feliciano was wearing a shirt of Lovino’s, the shoulders of which were too broad to fit Feliciano’s too-small frame and resulted in the Venetian’s slim pale collar and shoulders often being visibly exposed.

“Lovino looks really healthy. I guess from what I heard, he’d be a bit more…skinny?”

“What, like you?” Bartolo gave him a teasing pinch to his nonexistent love handle.

“I mean, yes. He’s my brother.”

“He’s always been _healthy,_ if not just in appetite,” joked Bartolo, looking over to see Lovino walking in and out of the stable, piling up old saddles to be recycled into leather strips. Feliciano was staring; Bartolo was looking over at the Roman with the lazy sort of interest that punctuated almost all of his interactions.

“He looks so strong and proud, you know?” Feliciano said to Bartolo. “Why is he… _glowing_ like that?”

“Sex,” replied Bartolo absentmindedly.

“ _Self-governance,_ ” hissed Carlo, giving Bartolo a light swat with the back of his hand.

“Oh, come on, he’s here with his wife, and look at how he’s walking. I know a well-fucked man when I see one—“

Carlo shook his head and turned to Feliciano, drowning out what the Tuscan was saying.

“He’s got his own government now. Plus, you always look best in your capital. This is where he’s healthiest. We’re made to stay home.” Feliciano ignored Bartolo's musings and nodded quietly.

“What do you miss about home?”

Carlo hesitated and Bartolo sighed deeply before starting on his long list.

“Art galleries, women, food that isn’t overseasoned…”

“Are women even that great?”

Bartolo snorted at him and Feliciano blushed. He’d yet to try (still waiting for his love to come back to him) and while he was sure it was great, he was perplexed by people who seemed obsessed with it.

“Sex really isn’t that important—“ started Carlo.

“Yes it is. Have as much of it as you can, Feliciano. On all types of surfaces and positions.” He chuckled. “Ask your brother.”

“ _Bartolo._ ”

~~

Serafina was back on top of the wall when she noticed the army coming over the hills.

“Fancy that,” she said to herself as she ran back down to alert the Legion.

She came back to the top of the walls with a Roman, a bespectacled Sardinian, and a few human soldiers in tow. She squinted down at the man at the front of the troops, bile rising in her throat.

“Francis Bonnefoy!”

“I am he!”

“Get out of here!”

“Suddenly, I am a _vous_ to you? I am so hurt! Regardless, I wish to parley!”

“We’re on land.”

“Same concept.”

She looked to her husband.

“Do I go down there or do we leave this to your people? That’s a lot of firepower in front of us.”

“I’m bringing it to Mazzini. We both know what happens if you go down there.”

She nodded and looked back to Francis below.

“Give us time to think!”

“Always, _ma biche_.”

He signaled for the troops to back up. A good while later, he glanced over at his commander.

“I highly doubt they’re going to want to bother. We’ve got Spain coming up too soon enough. It would be absurd for them to—“

He stopped, listening to chanting from inside the walls.

_Guerra! Guerra! Guerra! Guerra! Guerra!_

If he could hear that from so far away, he wondered how loud it was within the city. He suddenly felt aware of the sweat collecting around the band of his hat and in his armpits.

He personally went down to the front of the city to wait, seeing Serafina and Lovino appear at the top of the walls once more.

“We have our answer.”

“And?”

Four extended middle fingers.

~~

The problem wasn’t breaking into the city; Rome’s defenses cracked open under Francis’s fingers easier than a quail egg. The trouble was when the small group of French soldiers with Francis all got lost. Francis, for one, took a wrong turn and bumped directly into Lovino Vargas.

“What did I say, Francis?”

“You didn’t say anything, you gave me a hand gesture.”

Lovino kept advancing, shoulders broadening like a wolf bristling its fur. He leaned forward and Francis found himself turning from a falcon to a turtledove in the face of the youthful, _frightening_ energy coming off of the Roman. He had never looked more like his father.

“Your cannonballs are embedding themselves into my buildings. Your damn cologne smell is in my air. Get out of my city. You and all of your little _friends._ I’m not going to say it again.”

“Maybe I’ll like it here. I hear the weather’s very—“

Lovino lunged and Francis scrambled back. More and more words kept tumbling out of his mouth, Spanish feeling honey-thick on his tongue as Lovino got angrier and angrier.

A voice in Romanesco broke through the conversation.

“Stop!”

Lovino turned, having grabbed Francis by the collar of his shirt and shoved him against the wall.

“Mazzini, I’m—“

“Keep him as a guest. Same as the others I saw with Sicily and Sardinia. A Republic respects other Republicans. Look at the French constitution. They will want to help us after we show our good will.”

Francis smirked at the Roman, who was not as certain of Francis’s fidelity to his word as Giuseppe Mazzini was.

“You heard the man, Lovino! Article V!”

~~

_Signora Pavone,_

_The Spanish are very insistent. I am…frustrated that you are not here. I am heavily considering capitulating. I am sorry. I am old, Signora. I cannot be like you and fight forever._

_I am sorry that the Republic in Sicily cannot last. I fear that we that participated in the government will face harsh judgment._

_Settimo_

_Salvatore,_

_My darling brother, I ask a favor of you. My prime minister has to escape the Spaniards. Will you please open your arms and country to welcome him? As you can imagine, no resistance is free of strife. I wish they would be kind to him, but I do not believe that they will be. I am sure he will help you in any capacity you ask. He is a good man who I respect greatly._

_I hope you’re eating your vegetables. All that bacon England has given you can’t be good for you._

_I miss you so._

_Serafina_

_Settimo,_

_I have arranged for you to meet my little brother, Malta. Your boat leaves tomorrow at dusk. You will be met with hero’s honors. Thank you for your service. You have done more than any man could._

_Yours,_

_Serafina._

_~~_

War was officially back on their minds. The daguerreotype they stood for was one as freedom fighters instead of freedom havers. It sat in Romano’s attic, each face straight and emotionless. It was odd to see Bartolo not smiling or winking in the one picture of him that they had.

Everyone but Lovino and Serafina was on the walls of the city when the other Frenchmen, the Spaniards, the Austrians and the Papal army came.

“Why don’t they just let us have _one thing,_ ” muttered the Tuscan, getting up from where he was seated and stabbing out his cigar. “Keeping that French bastard a prisoner was a horrible idea. It just made them madder.”

The French had blitzed enough of the walls that the new soldiers could come through easily; it was all they could do to get them to stop and negotiate. Antonio and Papal States stood in the center of the city as Bartolo walked forward, being chosen as the friendliest while also being the biggest and because he was the least likely to deck either Antonio or the Papal States. Serafina stood with a pistol cocked behind her back.

Papal States stood like a ramrod and Antonio like an architect’s compass, legs spread wide and hands clasped casually behind his back. Both looked like they had been glossy and well groomed about two days ago.

“Greetings, gentlemen,” began Bartolo, hands outstretched and smiling earnestly. “I’m sure we can find some kind of agreement about how to go forward.”

“I want my city back.”

“I’m sure we can work something out—“

“I don’t want to work anything out. I want the whole city back.”

“I don’t want to fight, none of us want to fight—“ began Bartolo, hands in front of him in an attempt at making peace.

Antonio suddenly tilted his head back and laughed.

“Spain?”

“Roderich was right.” Antonio’s hands moved in front of him, neatly holding a pistol. Bartolo was clearly taken aback, frozen in place.

“Three days of blood for thirty years of peace.”

The gun cracked and Bartolo fell to the ground.

Chaos ensued. Fortunately, this was Antonio’s natural habitat. Serafina charged, clashing with some Austrians and throwing them like bales of hay. No one seemed to notice Carlo dragging his brother to safety, pulling out his medical equipment.

“ _Bartò_ , it’s going to be alright.” Carlo propped Bartolo up, his back resting on the Lombard’s knee. “I’ll fix you up. You’ll be right as rain.”

Bartolo’s breathing was thick and heavier than the blood pulsing out of the bullet wound in his chest. Bartolo reached up to grab Carlo’s hand, clasping it tightly.

“Carlo, you don’t need to worry too much, ah? Don’t bother fishing out the bullet. I can’t die. I won’t. We still have to swim in Lake Como together. I know this great spot. Maybe I’ll retire there instead of San Gimignano.”

Carlo nodded, closing his mouth tightly and giving Bartolo’s hand a squeeze.

“You’re a lucky man, Carlo, to have me as a brother,” Bartolo coughed. Carlo nodded again. Bartolo stopped breathing. Somewhere in the city, while running for cover, Feliciano’s eyes filled with visions of rolling hills and his nostrils with the smell of Pisan salt and grape leaves.

When Carlo felt Bartolo’s grip loosen he closed his younger brother’s unseeing blue eyes and picked up his brother’s gun. His eyes were threatening to brim over, but he did not let them.

“Say hello to Mantua for me, Bartò. Tell her I miss her.”

~~

Somehow in the violence the Republicans managed to find each other.

“Is the city capable of being saved?”

“I have no idea. Antine, what do you think?”

“We need to retreat and regroup. There are too many of them, there’s too much bad blood, and street fighting can only do so much when there’s—“

Another cannon fired and the window above them broke.

“—such a disproportionate amount of ammunition on the other side.”

“What do we do?”

“Carlo, Feli, you two see what all of people we have left and take guns and arms from dead soldiers. Serafina, you I trust to beat the living shit out of everyone you see. Do that. Lovino, I need you to figure out a base for us to hold them off and maintain some level of order. And I’ll…” _Drink heavily and then throw myself out a window._ “…I’ll go with Lovino.”

“How will we know where to go?”

Lovino and the others jumped to dodge a stray bullet; it grazed his cheek, leaving an angry red stripe across it.

“Meet up back here; I’ll take you to the hideout then.”

“Okay. Break?”

“Break.”

~~

Serafina is not someone you want to meet in a dark alley. She is also someone you don’t want to meet in an alley in full daylight. Basically, never cross Serafina’s path with malicious intent and you should live out the appropriate lifespan of your species.

The soldiers she was coming across did not seem to have gotten that message. They didn’t seem to understand when she would bite, claw, punch, and kick her way out of a throng of them. You could find her easily just by following the trail of knocked out foreigners in her wake.

Incidentally, this was exactly how Papal States was able to find her.

She was about to punch someone when a large hand wrapped itself around her bicep and pulled her around to face him. He stood perhaps half a meter taller than her.

“The game is up. Stop it. You’re not doing yourself any favors.”

She was glowing from exertion, a daunting little bedlamite if he’d ever seen one. Her face twisted into a grin, jerking her captured arm to try and get it back below her head.

“Go on, then, stop me if you can.” She kept wrenching her arm. “You can’t possibly _keep_ me like this—“

“I don’t hit women.”

“Shame for you. I hit men.”

_Crack._

~~

Carlo and Feliciano had managed to not get their hands as dirty. The Romans were scattered and they could not get a proper tally. If you had to ask Carlo for a prognosis, he’d say that they were in deep…water.

“I don’t fucking—“

“ _Feliciano.”_

“I’m sorry, Carlo, this is a situation that Bartolo would swear in. Just trying to fill his shoes.”

“Don’t bother with the swearing. It doesn’t suit you.”

“Okay.”

“We need to be on the lookout for an encampment, a base for them—“

All the glass around them shattered. What little color that remained in Carlo’s face drained out completely.

“—or an ambush—“

Venice didn’t have a left hook quite as mean as Sicily’s, and Lombardy didn’t have his head where it should have been.

“Carlo, go find the others!”

“What?! No, I’m—“

“I’ll be okay! I promise—“ a Spanish fist connected with Feliciano’s face. “Run, old man!”

Carlo, still unconvinced, managed to escape.

~~

Lovino had managed to convert his office into a bunker and was dragging Roman militia in to treat their wounds; Carlo’d taught him enough for him to be somewhat useful. Antine was ferrying any other Romans standing to safer ground, a stolen Austrian gun strapped to his back.

Serafina was the first nation to show up. Unsurprisingly, she had wounds to be tended to. The first thing she did when she came through the door was slam her side into the wall, resetting her dislocated shoulder.

“Who did that to you?”

“Papal States. Came this close to chewing my arm off; he’s got one _hell_ of a grip.”

Lovino had run out of bandages and was ripping up his shirt to use instead.

Antine finally came in and summarily began to offer comforting words to some of the Sardinian men in their final moments. Lovino didn’t know if it was sweat or tears coming down Antine’s face. He didn’t ask.

Serafina sat with some of the Southerners, who teased her about the makeshift sling made of her husband’s shirtsleeve. She knew that her fate was sealed; the Spaniards had taken back her territory. There was no hope for her anymore; the minute Antonio got his hands on her she would die. Lovino would not agree, but she was convinced. The Sicilians here were here because they did not want their ideas of what Italy could be to die. So she sat and chatted with the injured and the dying while Lovino, shirtless and bleeding, commanded the healthy and tended to his fallen. The wound on his face wasn’t healing and she began to wonder if he was doomed too before Lombardy came in through the door.

“Where’s Feli?”

“I…”

“Carlo, where is my brother?”

“There were too many of them, I couldn’t—“

Lovino dropped what he was doing and grabbed at a gun.

“I’m going to get him.”

Serafina finally stood up.

“Lovino, no, let me—“

He strode forward and kissed the top of her head.

“You’re injured, you’ve done enough. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine, I promise. ”

“You don’t even have proper clothes. Are you going to run out there like a Celt?”

He looked down at his bare torso.

“Here,” she said quietly, managing to untie her shawl and wrap it around his shoulders. “It’s no shirt,” she admitted, tying a strong knot in the center of his chest, “but if you put on your coat over it, it will do.” He glanced into a shard of a mirror and grinned.

“I look beautiful.”

She rolled her eyes.

“You’re the most beautiful girl in Rome, Lovino Vargas. Antine, please escort Miss Beautiful.”

“Of course. Carlo, Serafina, I can trust you to hold us down here?”

Lovino shrugged on a coat and grabbed another stolen foreign gun.

~~

Antine wasn’t sure how he managed to get separated from Lovino in such a spectacular and rapid fashion, but he was running through the halls of the Assembly building and shooting any foreign soldier he saw. His knife, still unused so far outside to cutting up strips of linen, kept bouncing against his thigh. The fresh scar on his stomach was throbbing.

~~

Romano fired his gun about three times before opening the door behind him and falling out of it, slamming it and turning around to look into a pair of familiar green eyes.

“Antonio—“

Romano kept clutching the gun to his chest, making a barrier between him and the Spaniard that was minuscule but gave him comfort.

“Antonio, why—“

“Where’s Francis?”

“I have no damn reason to tell you that, you fucking--" 

“Monster?”

“You can’t—you can’t possibly…. _fuck_ you—“

Antonio’s pistol felt heavy in his hands. He realized it was pointed at Lovino’s feet. His face shifted to the one Lovino recognized from his childhood.

“Lovino, don’t you love me? Do you trust me? Tell me where Francis is, Lovi.”

_Do I love him? Yes, yes, I do, I should help, yes, Antonio, please, don’t be angry at me—_

Bartolo’s dead body and Serafina’s purpling neck after the attempted execution flashed through Lovino’s mind.

“No, I don’t—“

Antonio’s gun was in front of him and the bullet was out of the barrel before he could stop himself. Antine opened the door just in time for Lovino’s body to fall into his arms. He looked up to see his own younger brother standing over them, that nation-killing pistol smoking.

“You…” Antine dropped his gun and gently let Lovino rest on the ground. “I have…” Bile rose in Antine’s throat as he looked Antonio in the eyes from behind his gaze-obscuring glasses. “I’d call you a son of a bitch, but I don’t want to insult our mother.”

Antine’s knife flipped itself easily into his hands. Antonio seemed to not have noticed, he himself too stunned by his actions to notice much to begin with.

“What was it you said about my island back in the day, back before I pushed the French out?” Antine advanced and Antonio could not breathe.

“I don’t remember—“

“ _I do._ I recall _vividly._ ” The knife dug into the skin exposed by Antonio’s open shirt. “You said we would never succeed, _porque somos…_ ”

It dug further and Antonio was helpless for one of the first times in his life.

“ _Pocos…_ ” It pushed inside of his chest, right in the notch of his sternum. He felt a bone break.

“ _Locos…_ ” He drove the knife down. Antonio was losing consciousness. Antine kept carving him open as Antonio fell to his knees.

“ _…y mal unidos._ ” The knife twisted and Antine felt Antonio’s heart stop. A little brother by blood as payment for a little brother by practice. Antine pulled the knife out and wiped it on his pants, grabbing Lovino and keeping himself from crying with relief when he noticed that Lovino still had a pulse.

Antonio was left alone while bleeding out on the ground. He would always be alone.

~~

Antine burst through the door with Lovino in his arms and Carlo was immediately pulled away from his moment of rest to tend to him. You couldn’t tell how much Lovino had bled until Antine set him down, white shirt stained crimson.

 _“No,”_ Antine heard Serafina say from the corner of the room. Carlo ripped open Lovino’s soaked coat.

“Forceps,” Carlo called to a capable Lombardese minuteman who had been assisting. “I need to see what level of damage we’re looking at here before I take the bullet out.”

Antine was at the other side of the room, physically blocking Serafina from leaving.

“I’ll kill him myself I’ll tear him limb from limb—“

“Nina, stop it—“

“I’ll strangle him I’ll make sure he never comes back I’ll separate his head from his _fucking_ shoulders that Spanish _bastard_ that fucking—“ She was maybe half a second from collapsing into tears.

“Serafina,” called Carlo. “The bullet went through the knot in your shawl and it stalled the trajectory. If it hadn’t, he would be dead. He is going to live because of you.”

Now she finally fell into hot, fat tears; Antine was thankfully there to catch her.

Carlo put the shrapnel in an ashtray and used Serafina’s mangled shawl to hold Lovino’s chest shut. The sutures would be fine, but it was wise to be cautious. He smiled faintly to himself at recognizing that Tuscany’s wounds had been similar. At least this time Lovino had been incapable of stopping him from fixing him up. At least one person was not going to become an only child today.

Serafina moved to sit next to Carlo, wiping her eyes and pushing Lovino’s hair away from his face.

“Have you gotten your immunizations recently?” asked Carlo offhandedly.

“Yes. Why?”

“No reason.”

There was a bang at the door. Someone was trying to get in.

“They must have followed me…” hissed the Sardinian, grabbing his rifle. “Barricade the doors!”

Two Romans shoved bookcases in front of the creaking doorway, which seemed to hold the intruders off for a moment.

“Rome is going to fall,” murmured Serafina.

“No. Rome is with us wherever we go,” replied Antine. “Serafina, how much has your shoulder healed?”

“I’m doing well enough. Why?”

“Get out of here. Out the back of the city. It’s dark, you’ll have cover, and you know the city better than—“

“Sardinia and I will hold them off,” said Lombardy. “You take him and run. Go to the mountains.”

“You can’t just—“

“This is not negotiable. Take Lovino and run.”

“I—“

“ _Now!”_

Serafina slid out the window with Lovino in her arms. The door broke open; intruders pointed their guns at the wounded. Some fired, some kept prisoners. Carlo closed his eyes and Antine braced himself.

Lombardy and Sardinia had failed, Tuscany was dead, Venice was captive, and Sicily and Romano were fugitives. 

The Triumvirate had fallen. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:  
> Throwing shit: It's an italian tradition to throw old things out your windows during New Years to make room for the new. Also, you drink prosecco during New Years Eve. It's a thing. 
> 
> Signature meaning "please": In French, you often abbreviate "s'il vous plait" with "S.V.P." He's joking since her full initials are S.P.V.
> 
> Ma biche: My doe. It's a term of endearment for a little girl. Kind of like "sugar" or "darling". 
> 
> Article V: An article in the French constitution stating that the French will not ever suppress the liberty of another people. This is obviously bullshit, since they did that plenty, but Mazzini really liked the idea of Republics helping other Republics out. 
> 
> Like a Celt: the Celts ran naked into battle a lot. 
> 
> Pocos, locos, y mal unidos: "Few, insane, and poorly united": famous summary of the Sardinians by a Spanish viceroy in the 17th century.


	11. Chapter 11

Mist rolled in the Valletta harbor as the boat cut through the obscurity. Ruggero’s grey head could barely be picked out from the pier.

One of the first things the former Prime Minister of Sicily saw of Malta was a bearded young man standing on the dock. His skin was tanned and smooth except for a scar just under his eye; his hair was just as luxurious as that skin, darker and glossier than the fresh black of his frockcoat. He stood with an elegant, bejeweled black cane between his fingers, deftly planted between his turned out feet. Settimo could not yet tell if he actually needed it.

Ruggero disembarked.

“Signor Settimo?”

“I am he.”

The young man offered an arm for Ruggero to hold. At getting a closer look at him, Ruggero noticed his grey eyes. They were somehow sharp and sleepy at the same time. When he began to walk, Settimo noticed his limp.

“I am Salvatore St. John,” said the young Maltese man in perfect Sicilian. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I welcome you to Malta.”

~~

Lovino didn’t have to open his eyes to know he was in the belly of a ship. He opened them anyway to see Serafina looking at him intently. His head was in her lap and her arms were holding him steady. He tried to move and every inch of him decided to remind him of the gaping hole in his chest.

“God _fucking—“_

“Don’t move, you’re going to reopen it.”

“You don’t say.” He winced, looking back up at her. “Where are we?”

“We’re on a ship back to Naples.”

He tried to get back up and she pushed him back down, gentle and insistent in a way that comforted him.

“What—“

“The Republic fell, Lovino. We got out by the toenail. Carlo and Antine…”

“Are they…are they dead?” She was quiet. “Nina?”

“I have no idea, but I heard gunshots on my way out of the building. Lovino, I’m sorry.”

~~

Carlo’s hands were tied as he waited in the dark room. He had no idea where Antine was. He didn’t particularly care. There was only one thing on his mind when Roderich came in to speak to him:

“Where is my son?”

Simone had ceased contact with him after Milan was taken; it was all Carlo could have done to not drop everything and ride there himself. His brother’d had to restrain him from doing exactly that on many an occasion. His brother…

It washed over him afresh.

“Austria, where is Milan?”

Roderich lowered his eyes while Carlo’s kept burning into him.

“ _Austria._ ”

“Things happen, you know.”

 _No_.

“You’re guilty of high treason. You’re dying tomorrow morning by firing squad. If Dante is to be believed, you’re going to hell. I don’t owe you an explanation. I don’t owe you anything..”

Roderich figured it was cruel; Simone was sitting in the room adjacent. But if Carlo thought there was nothing left to lose, then he might give them some information that could help them.

Roderich was wrong. Carlo swallowed thickly and his eyes, stone steady, met Roderich’s.

“Then I’ll see you in hell.”

Roderich very quickly left the room.

The next morning he stood staring down three guns.

“Last words?”

“Long live the Republic. Long live Italy—“

His last thoughts were of the shoreline of Lake Como.

Somewhere within the building, Simone’s shoulders widened and his mouth filled with the taste of dessert wine.

~~

Feliciano was sitting outside when the former nation of Milan and new nation of Lombardy came slinking into view. Both had at least a few bruises on their faces.

“Simone, I’m so sorry—“

“He’s with Mom and Uncle Bartò again,” murmured Simone more to himself than to the Venetian before slumping down and cradling his face in his hands.

“Roderich said that if I told him things, he’d be spared. I told him everything I knew. It…it didn’t do anything. I don’t understand…”

“I…they recovered Bartò’s body,” offered Venice quietly.

“What, is any amount of body recovery going to bring him back?”

Venice’s mouth shut.

“That’s what I thought,” said Simone, no longer hiding the tears falling from his dark eyes and gluing his pale blond lashes into small triangles. He hadn’t known his mother enough to be sad when she was passed; he barely remembered her face. “Venice?”

“Yes, Milan?”

“Do…do you still miss your father?”

Feliciano was struck with the realization that Simone had only had his one father his whole life; this was Milan’s first time as an orphan. Venice’s arm wrapped around Simone’s shoulder as he pressed the younger boy to his side.

“Death doesn’t get any lighter, Simone, you just get strong enough to carry it.”

~~

Antine had been the most fortunate. Instead of keeping him as a hostage, Roderich had given Antine immediately to the Piedmontese soldiers that came knocking. Antine was brought to his new king and pardoned immediately. Probably not what Roderich was expecting when he gave the House of Savoy back their runaway nation; Antine couldn’t give less of a fuck what Roderich thought at this moment, so it was a moot point.

Antine was sitting in the financial advisory room with the King and a few ministers.

“Now that you’re back, we need to speak on the reparations demanded by the Austrians.”

“How much?”

The minister adjusted his small pair of spectacles. Antine took a drink from his cup of coffee.

“The demanded sum was…sixty-five million.” Antine choked on his drink and put it down in an attempt at saving face.

“Tuscany was going to help pay, but…they are currently occupied with the funeral service for their nation and inaugurating the new one.”

_Leave it to Bartolo Cecconi to die and leave me to foot a bill for sixty-five grand._

~~

Antonio sat with his shirt open over his bandaged chest. _There will be a scar_ , the army physician said. Antonio had made some light joke about how he could no longer boast a breast like that of Adonis. But his mind was still frozen on the memory of a limp Lovino bleeding on the marble floor.

Somehow he wasn’t bothered by having shot the Tuscan; the shot that started the chaos seemed perfectly justified. But Lovino…Lovino didn’t deserve to die.

Antonio had begun to smoke more cigars and drink more wine. To help stave off the pain in his chest, he said, but he never elaborated on what in his chest was hurting.

“Lord Spain, Sicily was apprehended in Naples.”

“Did…did she say anything about Lovino?”

“He’s alive. They have him too.”

Antonio wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Let them go.”

“What?”

“They will not face trial.” _Thank you, God, for giving me this second chance._ The wound in the center of his chest throbbed.

“I will send word, sir.”

“Thank you.”

~~

There were three graves somewhere outside of Milan. Two of them were fresh. A recently made headstone now lay next to one reading ALLEGRA CAPRA – MANTUA, REST IN PEACE. Simone put a fresh bouquet of roses on her grave, then another on the new headstone: CARLO CAPRA – LOMBARDY, REST IN PEACE. Simone gave a wry smile at his uncle’s grave a bit farther away. Whoever had dug it had made sure that Bartolo’s grave faced Tuscany.

“There’s a huge squabble over your territory, old man,” Simone breathed, putting a bouquet on Bartolo’s grave. “Parma and Modena want it bad; they don’t know Feliciano’s already been chosen. It went just how you planned it.”

Part of him wanted the grave to speak back to him. A clean hand pushed back even cleaner, silky white-blond hair from a high forehead.

“Is all this how you planned it too, uncle?”

~~

_A tiny, dark skinned young woman was running through a bombed-out city with a blood-soaked young man on her back. She made it out of the city and jumped onto the back of a hay cart, cushioning the young man gently. They had sat for maybe three minutes when his breath stalled in his chest._

_“Don’t you dare leave me in this world all alone,” she scolded, voice hot in her throat as she checked his bandages and tried to figure out what the cause of his distress was. He coughed and groaned._

_“We’ll get to the port soon. Stay alive, damn you.”_

~~

Years passed, nearly a decade, of not much changing; all knew what had to happen, but all were carrying the wounds from their first attempt close to their hearts. If you so much as mentioned rebellion to Lovino, his chest would begin to throb. When his wife put a hand on his chest, she could feel the blotched, raised, star-shaped welt of scar tissue under her fingers. He and Serafina were back in Naples and keeping to themselves. The Republic still burned inside of both of them. A small vial with a bullet sat on Lovino’s desk, which he was always ready to point out had been inside of him.

Antonio did not like it when Lovino pointed out the bullet on his desk.

Antonio’s own scar was bigger, but fading quicker than Lovino’s. Antonio liked to joke that his scar made him seem sexy and mysterious. Lovino’s was just tender and painful and something that Lovino did not like to show.

Antine still felt that longing for completion of the task in his gut, more present than the Czech slug that was still there, lurking, lost in his insides. He grew close with his new administration and helped for those that had aided him in the Roman front to get jobs in official capacities, protecting them from harm.

A war had broken out not too far away; the English and the French side by side with the Ottomans against the Russians. No one was really sure as to why they were fighting; some English people said a logistics reason and others said it was for the hell of it.

It was enough of a disaster for one silver-haired man to read the paper and mutter that the French were doing nothing and the English were helping them do nothing as quickly as possible before laughing to himself about how funny he was and take another gulp of weak coffee.

It was a disaster that would go down in history for poems written about it being a disaster.

And this, of course, is where the second movement of our symphony begins.

~~

“We’re sending you into Crimea.”

Antine looked up from his coffee and into Cavour’s face.

“Excuse me? I don’t think I heard you correctly—“

“No, you did. We’re sending troops to Crimea, and you’re going with them.”

Antine steepled his fingers in front of his snubbed nose and inhaled deeply before responding.

“That’s a terrible idea. Is that why you brought me in? To ask about that?”

“No, it’s already been decided. If we are to unify Italy, we cannot do it alone. We need allies; preferably the French. You’re leaving in three days.”

“Excuse me, sir, but if you look at the papers it’s a shitshow—“

Camillo’s eyes sparkled almost deviously.

“ _Exactly._ If the British and English are already doing an awful job, then we can’t look worse by comparison.” Antine made a pained, but amused noise in the back of his throat.

“You’re to meet with the British, French, and Turkish nations somewhere around Sevastopol. You will be debriefed there and, if all ends well, you will go to the front lines. How good is your English?”

“It’s…decent.” Antine hadn’t practiced in a long time.

“And your French?”

“Nonexistent.”

“No matter, the English will be enough for someone to translate…that will be all. Go and get your affairs in order.”

“Signor Benso, will my brother be amongst the French troops?”

Camillo Benso di Cavour had no answer to that question and responded accordingly.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Goodbye and good luck, Antine. We are counting on you to make a good impression.”

~~

Arthur’s first impression of the Sardinian was not actually his first impression of him; it was more a second, or a third. But it was the first in a long while. It was of Antine vomiting over the side of a boat.

“Judging by your state, the sailing was not as smooth as hoped?” he called up. Antine yelled back something in Sardinian that Arthur imagined was foul, silently wiped his mouth, and disembarked maybe ten minutes later. In only twenty-odd years Antine had somehow managed to grow taller than Arthur and it irritated him. Antine seemed to stumble over the English the same way a blind man stumbles over cobblestones without a cane.

“Fine I am,” said Antine in a thick accent. “Sadik and Francis where are?”

“When was the last time you spoke English?”

“1830.”

They began walking in the direction of the encampment while Antine got his grip back on Arthur’s mother tongue.

“I’ll pretend that the fact you didn’t speak English for over twenty years doesn’t offend me.”

“Excuse me,” said Antine, tongue finally acclimating to English syntax over Sardinian, “English is not my first language. Or second. Or third, for that matter. How many languages do you speak again?”

“English, _French_ —“

Antine snorted. “I said speak, not imitate wistfully.”

Arthur’s brow quirked and Antine pinched back a grin at Arthur’s agitation.

“Fine. English, German, and some Cantonese.”

“Cantonese?”

“Been spending some time in China, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“I’ve been rather preoccupied, Arthur.”

They finally reached some small hole of an encampment, where both Francis and Sadik were sitting across coffee and having a heated conversation about art, or literature, or some other bullshit that Antine couldn’t be bothered to participate in at the moment.

 _Impress the French_ , said his superiors. _It’s the only way to get Italy united._ But bedraggled and ill Antine, looking at Francis’s glossy hair and elegant, fluttering fingers, kept hearing Roderich’s voice in the back of his head: _“You have nothing to offer. You have no money, and you have no resources that we can use. Worthless.”_

“Antine?”

Antine snapped back to awareness, looking at the Englishman addressing him. “Yes?”

“Francis just said something to you in Spanish. Didn’t know if you wanted to respond or not. Honestly, I would advise against it—“

Antine chuckled before looking in earnest at Francis. “What is it? I apologize, I got a little distracted.”

“There’s someone in the tent over there who would love to see you,” repeated Francis with a faint smile. Antine’s face shifted to one of eagerness, quickly pushing past the others. Arthur stood perplexed at Antine’s sudden animation until he heard the loud whooping from the tent and Antine burst out with another dark-skinned, dark-haired young man in a headlock. They were wrestling and yelling excitedly in a Romance-sounding language that was beyond Arthur’s understanding.

“Corsica’s never been that happy to see _me,_ ” sighed Francis in a tone that was almost self-deprecating. But both Sadik and Arthur knew Francis well enough to know that he would never stoop so low as to make a punchline of himself.

“Can you blame him? I can’t think that anyone’s been happy to see _you_ ,” retorted Arthur, pulling up a chair to watch the two islanders in the throes of their family reunion. Afternoon coffee and a show was maybe the best they could all hope for in this hellhole.

Andria’s hair had fallen out of his ponytail and the long, straight black hair was falling in his face as he playfully threw his brother off his wide shoulders.

“You’ve gotten _slow_ , you _damn mountaineer—_ “

Antine was laughing, the sound piercing the encampment in its depth and clarity. Andria’s face had that same arrowhead quality as almost all the islanders: high cheekbones and wicked sort of mouth, a clean line of a nose that pointed to a strong chin. His eyes were dancing as he finally grabbed Antine by his narrow shoulders and got a good look at him.

“Antine, when are you going to put on some muscle, eh?”

“When you stop getting bad sailor tattoos in Ajaccio.”

Andria rolled his eyes and Antine’s narrowed behind his glasses, leaning forward to get a closer look.

“What happened to your eyes? They were green—“ Andria lightly swatted away his hand.

“They turned blue when Francis took me. I’ve only just gotten used to it; please don’t make me mourn any more than I have to.”

“Tell me, _frade_ , all that I’ve missed since you got booted off the continent after Waterloo.”

Andria lightly kicked a pebble.

“We’ll have plenty of time on the road. We were waiting for you to get here; we should be packing up soon.”

Antine was looking at the Corsican, _really_ looking at him for the first time in decades, and felt a thrum in his chest that he didn’t know was a desire to hug his little brother again or if it was to openly cry. Antine did neither, opting to help Andria dismantle his tent and wipe his eyes casually.

"Where is the next place we're headed to?" asked Antine, knowing that the others were going to tell him, but wanting to hear his little brother's voice. 

"Nearby, just at the outskirts of the city. We should get there on the fifteenth." Andria looked up and his eyebrows clenched, as if rereading his memory of the map.  "It's called...damn, I can never pronounce it right. Jarnoa? Cernaia?" 

"Tchernaïa," called Francis in the near distance. "It's a river; we need it to clean off and prepare for the party." 

Party? The fifteenth was the Annunciation Day, but Antine wasn't sure what else they could be celebrating. 

"It's the Feast Day for the Emperor," clarified Andria. "Same day. We could argue he picked it that way, but I doubt he had the foresight..." Andria looked behind him to see if his superior was in earshot. "Between you and me, I--"

"I'm listening!" called Francis. 

"I was going to say 'Between you and me, Francis has amazing hearing and never knows when to mind his business!" yelled back Andria. Francis made a faint noise through his nose and Antine started laughing again. 


	12. Chapter 12

Francis and Arthur were too tired and numb to argue and that in itself gave Antine some kind of idea of what situation they were in. Andria, really still a child at heart (though he would be loath to admit it, being physically seventeen), was charging ahead and rousing up song from the remaining soldiers and slapping the backs of the new recruits, trying to give them energy to replace Francis’s listlessness. To Francis’s dismay, Andria’s lovely blue and red _grenadier_ coat was slung haphazardly over his shoulders and collecting dirt and grime faster than the soldiers themselves. It was unsure as to whether Andria actually wanted to be here. If he did, he would have been the only one. Antine was amused to see that his younger twin had strapped his beautiful, beloved _cetera_ to his horse right next to his rifle. Corsica’s priorities had always been in order.

They made their way to the Chernaya in a timely, if not sloppy, fashion. Sadik mentioned to them in passing that _Chernaya_ meant something like “Black River”. Sadik, for whatever reason, was the only one out of all of them who had bothered to learn any Russian. Sadik was also the only one out of all of them who spoke any Turkish, muttering in it under his breath as Britain and France spoke over him. While he historically was not a fan of the Ottoman, Antine found himself feeling sorry for him.

This pity somewhat peaked when the Christian festivities commenced on the fifteenth.

“Sadik, can I give you some wine?” Sadik looked up at the Sardinian disparagingly.

“Shit, oh shit, oh my god, I’m _so_ sorry, I didn’t—I forgot—“

The dam broke and Sadik burst out into hearty laughter at his own joke.

“I’m just fucking with you, it was an honest mistake. You’re forgiven, kid.”

“I’m just sorry you have to do all of this sober.”

Sadik nodded.

“Oh, believe me, I am too. But go on, get out there. I think your brother’s calling you.”

Antine turned to see Andria beckoning him aggressively towards the barrels of alcohol. Francis was lounging, pale and romantic, with the senior officers, holding a glass of wine from a bottle instead of partaking in the frenzy at the cheaper wine from the barrels. Antine almost considered sitting with him. Usually he would have, but his recent bad brush with another certain high-culture aficionado had left a bad taste in his mouth. It was time to…how did they put it? It was time to walk on the wild side.

Andria jostled into him, handing him a full cup of wine.

“There’s beer too! And food!”

“Those exist elsewhere, you know—“

“Oh, shh, just drink it.” Antine obliged, the wine hitting his empty stomach like a bag of sand hit the bottom of a well. Andria was still not wearing his coat, chatting and sweating with everyone else in his shirtsleeves. Antine was tempted to take off his own jacket, but then looked back at Francis. _He_ was wearing a coat. And Francis was the one he was supposed to impress.

“Andria,” he whispered, pulling his brother to him briefly.

“What’s up?”

“Andria, how do I impress Francis?” whispered Antine.

“You don’t.”

“No, I don’t mean _romantically_ —“

“The answer’s the same!” Andria said cheerfully. “Which is why I never bother.” He leaned forward to look up into his older twin brother’s face. “Just do what comes naturally.”

“Corsica!” called one of the soldiers. “Play a song on your pretty little guitar!”

“It’s a _cetera,_ and only if someone sings accompaniment!” he called back.

A Corsican man was pushed to the front of the crowd.

“What’s your name?”

“Léon.”

“Call me Andria.” Andria grabbed his _cetera_ , propped artfully on a tent-pole, and began to tune it. “Are you going to sing for me, or are you gonna keep standing there?”

“Tell me what to sing and I’ll sing it,” said Léon confidently. Antine began to strum, and Léon began singing a Corsican work song. Antine could see Francis shaking his head slightly out of the corner of his eye. Antine began to drum accompaniment on the empty wine barrels and hum a harmony with Léon. Léon finished and someone else came out with a guitar and another with a tambourine, and finally someone with a snare drum definitely stolen from the drummer boy, who was inebriated in the corner. No judgment to the drummer from the soldiers; everyone else was well on the way.

Andria finally put his _cetera_ down when someone asked if they could play it. “Yes, but you must be gentle with her; she’s a beautiful, classy lady.” The Sardinian soldier who’d asked strummed a few experimental notes before plucking out something that began to suspiciously sound like a sea shanty _._ Others caught on, stamping and clapping accompaniment for the other musicians while others began to dance. And by others, Antine meant Corsica. Andria suddenly bent over and pulled his shirt over his head, tying it around his waist as he began to sweat and indulging everyone with both the sight of his bare torso and his own raspy singing voice. Andria’s dancing was almost feminine in its execution and circularity and Antine noticed (with no shortage of amusement) the perplexed yet excited looks on the other soldiers’ faces. _Someday you will all learn._

“What exactly is going on?” said Arthur, sliding in to sit next to Francis. He’d been out with a convoy and had been taking stock of their supplies; as a Protestant and as a man who, thankfully, did not have Napoleon III as an emperor he saw no point in the festivities.

“I’m enjoying the view,” said Francis casually, sipping his wine as Andria’s youthful form wound about the makeshift dance floor. Andria’s chest, arms, and back were covered in what Arthur recognized as fading sailor tattoos. In the August heat and from their short distance, the black ink blended with the brown of his skin in a way that almost resembled snakeskin.

“Isn’t he a little young for you?” asked Arthur, resting his chin in his hands.

“No, he’s older than _you_ if we go by the history books. Older than both of us, actually, if I remember correctly.” Francis’s eyes glided to look over at the Englishman with a sly, knowing sort of half smile. “Why? Jealous?”

“No,” said Arthur quickly. Andria jumped up on a wooden table, followed by Antine, who was singing in harmony with him. Andria’s shirt was now tied around his head in a suspiciously parodic headdress that was making Sadik’s eyes narrow off in the corner.

“He’s such a little maniac,” muttered Francis. “Whirling about undressed like that. So uncivilized.”

“Reminds me of someone else I know after a few too many glasses of wine,” said Arthur dryly, removing his gloves and silently accepting a glass of his own. Francis’s nostrils flared and Arthur’s eyebrows raised briefly before he took a deep gulp from the glass.

“Remind me again why you have him when he’s such a pain?”

“His younger brother is Spain and I wanted to relish in the irony of Spain having Rome’s heir as a servant and me having his mother’s heir as one. Spain never commented on it so I could never say anything. It really is a shame, you know. The second greatest joke in the world is one that will never be told.”

Arthur made a face and sucked his teeth in confusion. “What’s the greatest joke in the world, then?”

The sly smile returned. “You,” said Francis nonchalantly before getting up to speak with Sadik.

~~

Ivan stood out over the encampment, watching the revelry with a pair of borrowed and outdated binoculars.

“They’ll be too dried out tomorrow to fight back. It’ll get them out of Sevastopol and we can finally go home.”

Ivan’s tongue ran over the hole in his mouth where someone had punched out three of his teeth. They were still in the process of growing back. His commanding officer stunk of vodka.

“Anything to give us an edge,” he said quietly. “Let’s do that. Tell the others we move in tomorrow morning”

~~

Antine was drunk. Antine was _very_ drunk.

He and his brother had left the camp and were stumbling towards the riverbank. Andria flopped on his back and was staring at the sky.

“Look, look,” he slurred in his native language, pointing up. “What do you call that in German?”

“ _Die Milchstraße._ How do you say it in French?”

Andria’s chest swelled with a deep breath. Antine briefly saw who he’d been in the 1700s: a little boy, with a round, ink-free belly, bright green eyes, and pouting mouth. Antine felt his own chest swell in recognizing that Andria’d grown up without him, no matter how much Antine had fought for them to keep together. _Did Genoa or France ever love you the way I loved you,_ frade?

“ _La voie lactée._ I learned that from a book. Francis doesn’t like to talk to me much. He’s upset that I’m not French enough but he’s not willing to actually put in the time to…” Andria started cackling as he finished his sentence: “French me…” Antine’s face busted into a smile.

“French you?”

“I just want someone to French me, damn it!” wheezed Andria, rolling over onto his side.

“Please. You’re as French as I am,” Antine said, slapping Andria’s bare, tattooed back with the back of his hand.

“Am I?” replied the Corsican, not turning back to look at his twin. “I haven’t seen home in years; I’ve been in Paris and they’ve been keeping me away from the water. I think they’re gonna try and beat the sea out of me soon enough if I keep this up.”

Visions of his time in Vienna flashed through Antine’s mind.

“You’ll go back soon, you’ll speak more Corsican than your mouth can keep up with. Andria, you’ll be okay.”

“They’re keeping a close eye on me because of…uh, everything that happened with the first Empire, I think. I maybe got a little carried away…”

They weren’t going to talk about the Treaty of Paris. But Antine did have to add one thing:

“Can you blame them, Andria? You took over the Continent.”

“It’s funny, you know…I thought if I helped him, he’d help everyone else. He’d return the favor, you know, if I did what he said and went where he went. He never did. I did all that shit for him but he never really bothered with me.”

Antine looked up at _la voie lactée, die Milchstraße,_ the Milky Way, _la via Lattea,_ whatever the fuck it was called.

“…Napoleon just kinda forgot. About me. About us. When we reached that island, he just wanted to find the quickest way to leave. He forgot I was where he belonged. Will they all forget? Will I forget?”

Antine remembered his first few days home in Cagliari after coming home from Vienna.

“Andria, you will not forget. I promise.”

They fell asleep on the riverbank with wine on their tongues and hearts heavy with a feeling that they had somehow both been misplaced.

~~

Andria woke up with the dried-out taste of sour grapes in his mouth. He could see well enough to know that Antine was sitting upright, eyes fixed on the horizon.

“Andria, wake up,” he hissed.

“I’m awake.” Antine began speaking out of the corner of his mouth.

“You need to very carefully get up and not look behind you. Act like you don’t know what’s behind you.”

“Why, who is it? What’s going on?”

“Andria, _go_.”

Andria shifted to peek from under his armpit, eyes still hazy from the alcohol.

He could very clearly make out an image he was intimately familiar with: a fair-haired Russian sitting cross-legged on the ground, a flask in one hand and a rifle propped up at his side. Andria could guess two things. The first was that Ivan’s face was probably that same unerring serenity that he remembered from the scorched earth on the way to Moscow. The second was that the rifle was aimed at him. Andria did not blame him for the second thing.

“Andria, I want you to go to the camp and tell Francis and Sadik that there’s a _fucking_ sniper just outside of camp and be damn casual about it.”

“Yes, _sir_.”

Andria began to drag himself sluggishly across the grass, trying to be inconspicuous in the most conspicuous way possible in his usual fashion. Ivan, strangely, was ignoring him. The two fingers Ivan had been resting lazily on the trigger drifted upwards to beckon Antine closer. Antine was moving in spite of himself, practically pulled towards the Russian. He was Russian, wasn’t he? Antine had no idea. He just knew he had never seen someone that white before. Everything about him seemed more bleached out than old bones.

~~

Francis woke up to a pair of almond-shaped blue eyes staring intently into his. One of the few pretty things that Francis could do without seeing.

“They’re here.”

Francis groaned, cradling his head and pushing Andria back slightly.

“They can wait, whoever they are. I need—“

“No, I mean the Russians. They’re here. We should move or else everyone is gonna die.”

Francis was suddenly very awake, throwing himself out of his cot and grabbing for his clothes.

“They must have planned this thinking we would be too partied out to retaliate. They do not know how good I am at doing things while hung over.”

“You’re good at doing things while hung over? Usually you just give me your duties when you’re hung over.”

Francis sighed through his nose and buttoned his jacket, rousing the camp and jogging elegantly towards the horses. Sadik was helping a Turkish soldier saddle up as Andria began to tack his own.

“Hang on. Andria?”

“Yes?”

“I saw how much you drank last night. How are you not dead right now?”

Andria hopped on his horse, winking.

“It's not possible to be hungover when you're still drunk.”

Sadik laughed and Francis rubbed his face with a spare hand before following him.

~~

“I have a few questions to ask you,” the gunman began in neutral, accented English. _Russian_ , Antine determined. _Definitely Russian._

“What is your name?” Antine felt cold and foreign and chalked it up to the early morning air.

“I am Antine Pecora. May I ask what yours is?”

“Where are you from, An-teen-eh-pe-co-rah?”

“I am from Sardinia.” He was feeling more and more agitated as this continued; the round, soft features on the man in front of him didn’t match with the swollen voice thrumming out of his mouth, and he was beginning to feel like this interaction was going to shoot him in the foot. Perhaps literally. “Where are _you_ from?”

“Is that little boy that squirmed away your brother?”

“Little?”

The Russian looked up at him with eyes that looked like the bottom of an empty absinthe glass. Antine suddenly noticed the other Russians that were creeping in around the encampment; he trusted that the others were getting ready to deal with them. “Yes. Little. You’re both little.”

The Sardinian decided that he _did not like him._ Antine’s mouth twisted, looking at this crouched Russian in his oversized overcoat and gloves. Who wears that sort of thing in the middle of August? A madman, Antine concluded.

“Get up, then, and I’ll show you little.”

“Oh?”

Antine gulped, shifting on his too-long legs. “Yeah.”

The Russian got up and Antine realized that the overcoat wasn’t oversized, just bunched up. He towered over him, shoulders and chest broader than Antine’s concept of time, those absinthe eyes cutting into him like a scalpel. _Oh, fu—_

“To answer your questions: my name is Ivan Braginsky and I am from Moscow. Just out of curiosity, one last question: do you know how much force it takes to snap a human neck?”

A bullet buried itself into the soil two meters from where the Russian was standing, and Antine’s attention was diverted to Sadik, sabre drawn and smile vicious. Francis and Andria were riding out side by side to deal with the rest of the Russians. Arthur was nowhere to be seen.

“Don’t worry too much about that gun of his, Antine. He’s too broke to afford bullets! Isn’t that right, Russia?”

Ivan grabbed said unloaded rifle and said something in Russian that caused Sadik to lunge and bury his sword in the wood of Ivan’s weapon. Antine stepped back, staggering back to the camp for some semblance of order and a weapon. He saw with relief that the Sardinian forces had gone in without him. Or…they probably heard Andria and decided to listen. He grabbed his gun and mounted a remaining gelding in a quick, well-practiced movement, spurring him forward. In the madness he found that the Russians were falling over each other and onto each other’s bayonets more than on French or Sardinian ones.

“Where the fuck is Arthur?” he yelled over to Francis.

“Excuse me for being too busy to give a damn!” yelled back the Frenchman before neatly shooting a Russian soldier between the eyes. “Where did your brother go?”

“I thought he was with you!”

They both turned to see Andria running towards Ivan, shirt still tied around his head and gun still burning hot in his hands.

“Hey! Hey, _baccalà_! Time for round three!”

The distress coming from Francis was palpable; Antine didn’t have to look behind him to know exactly what expression his face was wearing.

“He never _fucking_ learns,” hissed the Frenchman, jerking his horse to the side and spurring her into a canter. Antine followed quickly behind, crossing himself before cocking his rifle.

Ivan had grabbed Sadik by the face and had thrown him into the dirt, apparently not noticing Andria rapidly approaching. The empty rifle went from defense to offense as a weapon very quickly, Ivan swinging it by the barrel to crack the Corsican across the face with the butt and knock him to the ground in one swift, brutal motion. For the third time in Corsica’s life, he was at Russia’s mercy. He would never know what exactly Ivan was going to do to him, however, because both France and Sardinia fell on the Russian in rapid succession, beating him back with a sort of cold precision Andria would have never expected from his brother and a sort of protectiveness Andria had never sensed in Francis prior.

That was all he really remembered before blacking out.

~~

_Gilbert,_

_I still don’t understand why you can’t be bothered to join our cause, given that your original purpose back in the day was to fight for the cause of Christianity. Wasn’t the whole premise of your Knightly order when you were a child to secure the Holy Land for Christianity?_

_Sincerely,_

_Arthur_

The response was full of stalls and blots of ink that Arthur recognized probably derived from Gilbert’s pen being pressed down too hard on the paper:

_Arthur,_

_For fuck’s sake, don’t drag my childhood into this and don’t act like I’m somehow a bad person for not wanting to touch whatever fuckshit that situation you have going on over there is for any amount of Indian diamonds or fresh Chinese opium (by the way, what the fuck?). You’re stirring the pot just because you can. I don’t like it. We tried to make peace between you and Russia (Roderich and me! Agreeing on something!) and instead you’re bullshitting because you want to beat someone up. And usually, I am all for beating people up (especially Russia), but not like this. At least be honest about wanting to kick his ass. If you were, I might actually help you, but no, you won’t be, so it’s a moot point. _

_I joined the Teutonic Knights because I, like many young boys back then, now, and for many years to come, enjoyed the idea of walking around with a big-ass sword and a cape. Ask ~~Hospit~~ Malta. He’ll tell you the same thing, if he’s anything like I remember him being. _

_If you want the war to end swiftly, just put a damn end to it yourself. You don’t need me to do that._

_Yours, (or am I?)_

_Gilbert Bielschmidt_

~~

A few months later, the Allies did finally put “a damn end to it” themselves. Antine, Francis, Arthur, and Sadik all sat across a table from Ivan. Andria, as Francis’s underling, had no place at the negotiations. Both Roderich Edelstein and Gilbert Bielschmidt were sitting on the victors’ side of the table, and Antine wasn’t exactly sure why. Another young man that Antine did not recognize sat next to Sadik, nursing a broken arm, a broken nose in the process of being reset, and a severely blackened eye. His dirty blond hair was an utter rat’s nest; Antine had to fight the urge to comb it himself.

“That’s Mircea,” whispered Arthur. “We only just got him back from the Russians a few days ago.”

“Are you going to colonize him too?” asked Francis casually, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“No more likely than you are,” Arthur shot back, muttering to himself about how they needed to have tea at these sorts of things before sitting up to speak.

“We are here today to discuss the terms brought forth in the conclusion of our dispute in the Crimea.”

“Yes.”

Arthur pulled out a pair of spectacles from the pocket of his waistcoat. Antine was certain that they didn’t actually have any glass in them.

“Excuse me,” interrupted Sadik, leaning forward. “why am I not reading this out?”

Arthur stopped and glanced over at the Turk with a tight, ironic smile.

“You know why.”

“It’s _my_ territory.” Mircea winced, mouth twisting while keeping his eyes downcast. “He damaged _my_ ward. The war was fought on Mircea’s territory, and therefore mine by proxy.”

Mircea looked up and said something to Sadik in Turkish. Arthur, taking stock of his distraction, then continued with reading out the treaty.

“From the day of the exchange of the ratifications of the present Treaty there shall be Peace and Friendship between Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom, His Majesty the Emperor of the French, His Majesty the king of Sardinia, His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, on the one part, and His Majesty the Emperor of All the Russias—“

 _There are multiple Russias?_ thought Antine with increasing horror. He could barely handle one; he couldn’t imagine the idea of several of the man in front of him existing simultaneously.

“…Their Majesties the Queen of the United Kingdom, the Emperor of the French, th the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the King of Sardinia declare the Sublime Porte within the Crimea, to which is granted free access by all the aforementioned European powers.” Antine glanced over at Roderich and Gilbert. _That’s why._ Roderich shifted and glanced at him, and Antine very quickly diverted his gaze. He did it just slowly enough to see Prussia’s mouth cock into a small smile. _Don’t say anything, I don’t know you, say nothing—_

“Finally, the Russians must recognize that they are not the protectors of Christendom within the Ottoman Empire. This role is now French.”

Ivan himself seemed startled by this.

“But France is Catholic. The practitioners of Christianity within the Ottoman Empire are mostly Orthodox. How can he protect something he doesn’t practice?”

“He does perfectly fine with that, given he’s so terrible a Catholic that his government had to be Catholic for him,” replied Arthur. Francis immediately stiffened.

“That’s a real gem coming from _you_ , Monsieur _Fidei Defensor_ , with your church splitting off just so your _king_ could _fuck_ _more women—“_

“I’ll have you know Henry VIII was a good man and the pursuit of an heir is perfectly _rational—_ “

Francis was actually standing up to address Arthur. Arthur was also standing up and they were walking to face each other, both shouting at each other about the separation of church and state. The treaty was abandoned on the desk.

Antine looked back up to see Gilbert lightly flicking his head at the abandoned paper in perhaps the most subtle gesture being thrown in the entire room. There was an impish, schoolboy kind of glint in his eyes that made Antine doubt that the gesture was seriously directed at him. Antine stalled before seeing Gilbert grinningly mouth something at him. _Weitergehen._ Go on. Antine felt his face redden. There it was again. _Weitergehen._

The dispute and the resulting anarchy in the treaty room stopped because Antine Pecora stood on a table and began singing the contents of the treaty like a national anthem. When order was restored he began to read in a normal voice.

“Would Mister Pecora please get off the table?”

“No. The Principality of Servia shall continue to hold the—“

The meeting continued as such, with Russia looking calm and frightening in his acceptance of the terms and the Allies bickering amongst themselves in a way that showed nothing of the underlying motives for their allegiance. When the meeting adjourned, Antine noticed that Roderich immediately left the room. _Now. You have to bring it up_ now.

“I would like to address my Allies.” Arthur snorted.

“You just have been for the past ninety minutes, but feel free.”

“I would like to bring to the floor the plight of the Italian peninsula; we are struggling to unify, and require some sort of—“

Antine saw Arthur roll his eyes and felt his stomach drop. Sadik was talking to Mircea quietly in the corner and Francis’s face was utterly neutral.

“After the shattering of the Roman Republic, Sardinia has been trying to gain some traction and unify us all. But we cannot do that alone; Austria is an empire. We…well, we are small duchies and kingdoms for the most part.” Antine saw Gilbert looking at him intently from the periphery of the room. “Would anyone be willing to come to aid?”

Arthur got up from the room and left, followed absentmindedly by Sadik and Mircea. Antine finally got down from the desk.

“Francis, you know more about revolution than anyone. I know you regret what you did in Rome—“

Francis laughed before resting the side of his face in one hand and cradling his elbow with the other. Blue, thin lines were woven under his eyes, lacelike in their intricacy.

“Why should I do anything for you? You overimpose. You give me nothing, Antine; you don’t even speak French. There’s nothing in it for me if I help you. All it will end up doing is throwing my relationships with Austria and Spain. And I’m sure you of all people can appreciate how unpleasant it is to cross Antonio. So in the end, I would have made enemies with two of my neighbors, and all I can show for it is…what, exactly? Republican zeal?”

“But Article V—“

“Article V refers to invasion, not aid.”

They were alone in the room except for a Prussian who was arranging his belongings and pretending (badly) to not be listening.

“I get nothing in return for alienating two, maybe even three people, after having thrown myself into a conflict that only emphasized how much my people hate war? I am an optimist, Antine, but I am not an idiot. Good luck with whatever you’re doing, really, I mean that. And good day,” He turned to leave the room.

“I’ll give you Savoy!” Francis stopped, placing his heel back on the ground. “…and I’ll give you Nice. _Please_ , Francis. Help us.”

Francis turned on that planted heel, face vulpine in a way that made Antine feel like he was going to regret everything about this offer. Gilbert had been cleaning out his nails in the corner for a good two minutes now.

“You’d give up your foreign holdings?” Antine gulped.

“Yes.”

Francis rubbed his eyes with two fingers before pinching the bridge of his nose with them, sighing dramatically. Gilbert left the room.

“I’ll speak with my Emperor. If all goes according to your plan, you will get terms soon. I expect to see your leaders ratify them forthwith.”

“Y-yes. Yes. _Yes,_ thank you, I—“

Francis was already out of the room.

~~

Adriana Incanto was a very pretty girl, pink cheeked, with strawberry blonde hair piled up on her head in a messy bun, wearing a dress that showed off the easy, soft slope of her hips. She’d taken to getting coffee with Sardinia often, speaking on their work. Mostly he listened to her talk about her home in Parma and her colleague Modena. Today he came to sit across from her and looked like he had been chewing on floor nails for a good eight hours.

“Something the matter?”

“No,” he clearly lied, running a hand through his black hair and adjusting those large opaque glasses. She still had never been able to make out what eye color he had. It infuriated her.

“You can tell me.”

“I actually _can’t_ , but I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Now you _have_ to tell me.”

“My lips are sealed.”

“Antine—“

“ _Sealed,_ Adriana. Meaning the opposite of opened. Closed. Locked. Shut. Not for perusal.”

She saw a folded document sticking out of his lapel pocket.

“Does it have anything to do with that?” she asked, fingers reaching lightly to try and pluck it from its resting place. He grabbed her wrist.

“I said no.”

She looked up, noticing another familiar face coming through the door. Parma offered the newcomer a smile and tilted her head lightly in a gesture of “please help me out, he’s being difficult again.” The new woman walked up and grabbed Antine’s letter in passing, slim fingers too fast for Antine to react to.

“ _Fu—“_

“Watch your _language,_ we’re women and we have sensitive constitutions,” replied Tristana Gattone, narrow shoulders still wet from the rain. Where Parma curved out, Modena was straight lines; while Parma was a Rubens painting come to life, Modena had the same sort of clean loveliness as a geometric proof. The Modenese woman flipped open the letter with a practiced ease. Antine sat with his hands out, resigned to having been outmaneuvered.

“Alliance between France and the Kingdom of Sardinia in the acquisition of a greater Italian state? My _goodness._ You know, Parma, I’m pretty sure that means us.”

“Ooh, you’re right,” replied Parma. “Sardinia, I think we want in on this…acquisition.”

“Nope.”

Parma shifted her dress slightly to emphasize the pale curves of her breasts when she leaned forward. Tristana looked scandalized and Antine was expressionless. “Let me say that again. We want in on this acquisition.”

Antine burst out laughing at Parma’s… _offer._

“You know that won’t work on me, Adriana.”

Tristana sniffed, wiping her upturned nose with a handkerchief.

“Please put your breasts away, Adriana. He’s gay.”

Parma blushed and moved back to her original position, wrapping her shawl a little tighter around her.

“Please, Antine. We would love to help. You just came back from Crimea; you need a little help, no?” Antine, being one who had a hard time saying no, scratched the back of his head.

“I’ll think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baccalà: Corsican for idiot, dipshit, asshole. "Round Three" is referring to the two Russian campaigns by Napoleon prior. Andria just really wants to kick Ivan's ass and it gets worse each time Ivan doesn't care/dropkicks him into the sun. 
> 
> So terrible at being Catholic that his government does it for him: A reference to the Gallican church and how the French king was supposed to be the authority over the French church instead of the Pope. 
> 
> Fidei Defensor: Defender of the Faith. It was a title given to Henry VIII by Pope Leo X prior to Henry, you know, kickstarting the English Reformation.


	13. Chapter 13

Their names did not use to be Andria and Antine. Andria used to be _Ahumm._ “Brother of the sea,” murmured his mother to him. “My firstborn son, my beautiful boy.” Andria had looked up at her with bright green eyes. Her violet ones had looked down at him and she had sighed softly.

Corsica and Sardinia were twins, one of the few twin pairs on Earth that could claim the Nation title.

Corsica had been born fifteen minutes after Sardinia.

Sardinia’s name had been _Arishat. Arishat_ always frowned when called “daughter”, squirmed awkwardly in the dresses given to her by her mother Phoenicia. She grew her hair long only to cover her face. She stomped her feet and threw tantrums when Phoenicia would not let her play swords with _Ahumm_ or sit with the boys _._

The slavers did not know their names when they had stolen _Ahumm_ and _Arishat_ out of their mother’s arms. They had asked in broken Phoenician, trying to undress _Arishat_ and failing. She held tightly to her garments, not letting them see whether she was male or female under the sexless nightclothes she wore. They ultimately had given up.

“I am _Ahumm_ ,” Corsica had said, jaw set and ready to fight. He was too small to take them all on. They knew this and acted accordingly.

“I am _Ahirom_ ,” Sardinia had squeaked as they grabbed her by her long hair and began to cut it. _Ahumm_ had begun shouting for them to leave her alone, not wondering why she’d changed her name from a female to a male one.

“So two little boys,” said one slaver in Latin. “They will fetch a good price.”

~~

Andria was currently sitting by the Seine and drinking directly out of a bottle of stolen wine while pretending that he was by the ocean instead. That afternoon he had forgotten another word in Corsican and substituted it with a French word. He’d numbed the panic by lying face down on a sofa for two hours.

“Is he ever going to move?” a minister had asked when Francis ushered him past.

“No. He doesn’t do that sort of thing,” Francis had said casually. Andria had tensed. He was sure Francis had noticed that it had gotten to him. At that point, he didn’t care.

Now he was starting to care. He brushed his hair back behind his shoulders, putting down the half-finished bottle of wine to tie it back with a scrap of linen. One would expect a silk or velvet ribbon, but Francis wasn’t the type to spare nice things on Andria anymore; he knew Andria would ruin them.

Andria had half a mind to hop on one of the barges going by and make for Ajaccio. Would Francis even care? He probably would.

The worst part was that Francis didn’t even seem to care when Andria was around; it was the fact that Andria would leave that bothered him. Andria chuckled to himself and took another drink from his bottle. He’d never been suited to servitude. What was it that Rome had said when he’d bought him as a slave? Ah, yes…he remembered now.

_“Anyone who buys a Corsican regrets the waste of his money,” Romulus had warned a statesman as a baby-faced Andria had set yet another batch of woven baskets on fire._

Wasn’t it funny how people kept trying to use him for forced labor? He kept trying to let them know that he didn’t like it. Genoa, especially, had _loved_ to try and get Andria to spit-shine his old boots. Living with Francis was maybe the first time where Andria’s antics weren’t actually working. He was starting to think he’d be like this forever; he’d be in a constant situation of wanting freedom and not getting it.

If he couldn’t be free…then he should make sure his brother could be even freer, expand his territory, you name it. He deserved that much.

 _All your brothers are kingdoms except for you._ Especially _your younger ones._

Kingdom of Sardinia. Kingdom of the Spains. Kingdom of Portugal.

He didn’t need a kingdom, he realized. He’d already been an empire.

~~

_Antine,_

_I have spoken further with my Emperor about our agreement earlier. While it is confirmed (as that last little declaration should have told you!) that we are allies in this cause, I—well, moreso we, meaning the Emperor and myself—have one stipulation._

Antine’s eyes were narrowing behind his glasses.

_We cannot aid you if you are the one to initiate hostilities. Austria has to declare war or an ultimatum first. It’s just the easiest way to ensure that our interests are protected. I hope you understand?_

_Anyhow. That shouldn’t be difficult, eh?_

_If—or really I should say “when”, shouldn’t I?—Austria declares war, I will be at your side and at your call. I promise._

_Yours,_

“That “yours” is maybe the biggest lie in the whole letter,” Antine muttered to himself.

_Francis._

He moved to shove the letter back in the envelope only to realize that there was another page that he’d missed.

_Antine!_

_So I heard that Francis is hitting you with the whole “oh I’m gonna help you but not really unless you’re going to TOTALLY throw yourself under the bus in the process”. So here’s my advice: needle Austria. Remember how we used to with Genoa? Do that. Fuck with the coast of Lombardy. Austria will give you an ultimatum in a few days. I guarantee or your money back (actually...HA. Don’t ask for money back. I’m broke)._

_We’ll get you Italy. I promise. Hope you’re doing okay._

~~

Simone Capra and Feliciano Vargas were used to each other. They were used to each other long before they were mandated to live together as Lombardy-Veneto; Feliciano knew that Simone was a young man who agitated over money while having too much of it and Simone knew that Feliciano spent time at sea because it was what he was good at and it kept him too busy to think about things. Thinking about things had always been Simone’s job.

They had lived together since they had been seized at the end of the war. It was a compromise, since they had almost been married. Feliciano had completely refused to enter a marital relationship, and Simone had acted offended but had secretly been relieved. Both Feliciano and Simone were nursing hearts rubbed raw from loss; Simone’s, however, had been much more recent.

They were both young men married to their art. And art took more work than any relationship between human beings.

Simone’s art was concentrated in his tongue. His voice was smoother than the marble statues decorating the Milanese palaces and it had the same ability of rendering any kind of subject to lifelike quality. It didn’t matter what he said; if he said things, you believed them. From his silky skin to his white blond hair, everything about him went down as luxuriously as Amaretto. He had inherited his father’s sharp black eyes and the same sort of hard, lofty bearing of a young man who’d belonged to aristocracy for as long as aristocracy had existed. He always vaguely smelled like rice and lake water, something that he tried to cover up with cologne and failed at. He had taken to wearing his late father’s signet ring on his middle finger, speaking with his hands so that it flashed as he spoke. No one was sure if the ring was supposed to serve as a reminder to others or as a reminder to himself.

Feliciano’s diction was one that danced a quadrille regardless of what all he was saying. His art was in his hands, which were simultaneously delicate and rough; he could row a boat with the same alacrity as he could paint a landscape. That lion cub sort of playful ferocity had won him an empire of his own in the past. He let no one forget that. His eyes were permanently and _playfully_ squinted in a way that you could never tell was ironic or if it was genuine. You always hoped it was genuine. While Lombardy impressed, Veneto _dazzled_ ; something shone out of him that touched his surroundings profoundly. One felt both incredibly beautiful but also ugly in his presence. His clothes always smelled like salt and wine and his boots were invariably full of sand. Whether the sand was from Italy or from Dalmatia was a mystery. His face was almost permanently sunburned and while standing still on land he seemed to sway somewhat, as if still governed by the tides.

They glowed calm like moonlight on the water's surface.

This wine-smelling, squinting, swaying, sunburned _boy_ of about seventeen came walking back into his home to see his almost-husband Simone reading something. From the flush of Simone’s face, Feliciano guessed that Simone had a slight fever.

“Something wrong?” Feliciano asked, hanging up his coat.

“Antine’s going for it again; I can feel it.” Feliciano stalled, biting the inside of his cheek before turning around to take off his sandy boots.

“What, another unification attempt?”

“Seems like it.”

Feliciano shifted on his bare feet before moving to the young Lombard.

“Are you going to deal with it, Simone? Are we joining in?”

Simone’s eyes closed and his head gently shook out a “no”. No, he was not going to drive himself into the same trap that killed his father. No, he was not going to ally himself yet with the man responsible for drawing his uncle into Spanish gunfire. No.

“Let Roderich deal with it. I’m tired.”

~~

There are two different types of empire. There is the empire that sleeps and the empire that does not. The empire that sleeps has numbed itself to its inhabitants, drowsy in its riches like a dragon lounging on its hoard. It is centralized; it operates from its sedan chair like a king from his throne. The empire that does not sleep hums like a harpsichord for each cry of discontentment. It goes searching for the squalling and puts it out before laying down for a few more moments of unrest before getting up to deal with the other cries, the other disillusionments, the other dissents.

Austria is an empire that does not sleep.

Roderich awoke to a sharp pain in his foot. _Gout,_ he realized as he pulled the covers back and bit back a gasp at the sensation of cloth pulling too-sensitive toes. Gout only meant one thing: the border of Lombardy was under threat. And if his dreams were any good indicator, he knew exactly why all the Italians were crossing the border.

Gout! _Why does it have to be_ gout _?_ he bemoaned as he tried (and failed) to get himself out of bed. His wife quietly rolled over and said something in Hungarian. He stopped to kiss the top of her head, her temple, her neck, whispering a "it's okay, I'm fine, no worries" into the hollow of her throat. _Fine,_ he thought, managing to get a lap desk, some paper, a pen, and a candle to his side of the bed. _Who needs a real desk?_ He quickly blotted his pen and prayed that he did not get any ink on his pristine bedsheets.

_Sardinia,_

_I am giving you three days to pull out of Lombardy. I know what you’re doing. I did not agree with it ten years ago and I do not agree with it now. If you don’t pull out, get ready to go to war. I guarantee that you don’t want that._

_Austria._

~~

Antine sat at his desk reading the notice he’d received from Austria. _It worked. Holy shit. It worked. Andria, how—_

Actually, that wasn’t a question he was ready to ask.

He was tempted to write Austria a note saying “ _Yes, I do_ ,” but refrained.

He was studying the note from Austria in the corner of Adriana’s parlor while Modena was examining Adriana’s new dress at the other side of the room. Parma was looking lovely, as always; she’d just gotten a new corset and was keen on showing it off to whoever would listen.

“Tristana, would you think my waist is small enough?” asked Adriana. “Can you put your hands around it so I can see?” Antine smirked quietly to himself. _Adriana, that’s just_ cruel, _don’t tease her like that._ Modena came forward to put her hands on Parma’s cinched waist, face expressionless.

“Adriana, there won’t be much space for a corset on the battlefield,” said Antine dryly.

“Why do you think I got this new one? It’s so I can break it in now and wear it when I get back.”

Tristana was still standing there, hands resting quietly above Adriana’s hips. They did not move when Adriana herself moved out of them, resting there in front of her for a good five seconds before she finally withdrew.

“What do you suggest we wear on the battlefield, though? I imagine skirts would be a bad idea?”

He shrugged.

“It suited Sicily fine. That was before crinolines and everything were popular, though.”

Parma snorted.

“Sicily’s clothes are very ruinable; I’m sure she doesn’t think much of what her clothes are worth. I would like to be fitted for a uniform like yours. I’m allowed to look good, no?”

Antine thought back to the bright blue coat in his closet. Modena could probably fit into one of his extra uniforms, but was there one like that that could accommodate Parma’s… _hams_.

“Yeah, whatever, Adriana. Feel free to dress in men’s clothes for your aesthetic. Not going to judge.”

~~

_Antine,_

_Coming by steamboat. Francis is taking the train with every other Frenchman. Like a bitch. Hold your position, I’ll be there like…tomorrow. Maybe a day after. But hold till I’m there._

_Andria_

_~~_

Somewhere in Naples, there are two people who escaped death and Spanish imprisonment by force of personality alone.

One is a woman. She is dark haired and amber eyed and always has a look on her face as if she is secretly laughing at you. She looks somewhere between seventeen and nineteen; narrow hipped, wide shouldered and strong armed, muscled in a way that causes fashionable corsets to break in half instead of cinching herself smaller. She has not bothered to wear them, causing high-class women to tut-tut about how disappointed her husband must be in her thick, unbound waist, her dark skin, her stockiness.

The other is her husband. His chest is still aching from an old wound and his eyes are hazel and marked with a cynical sort of laziness. His hands are large and rough and find themselves around the woman’s waist easily and happily, contrary to the high-class women’s beliefs. He has a sad, thoughtful sort of mouth that she coaxes and kisses into a smile.

They are not married to art or the harvest the way they are married to each other. They work in the fields together and fall into bed together, sore and exhausted after so many bushels of wheat and baskets of almonds. He kisses her cracking hands and she kisses the spot on his shoulder where the leather straps of too many bags dug into his skin.

They burn bright like Naples's sun.

The wife was brushing her hair, looking at her husband reading a letter from somewhere in Spain.

“Antine was actually serious about trying for another unification attempt,” said Lovino, pinching the bridge of his nose lightly. “Sounds like Austria just declared war on his ass. I guess that explains how ridiculous communication has gotten lately.”

Serafina put her brush down and silently began to braid her hair. Lovino was rubbing his chest with one hand and the other was shaking.

“Fuck, I should have told him to drop it—“

“We should get involved—“

“ _No_. No. We’re not doing that.” Serafina’s face shifted and Lovino knew she would say—

“What the hell is _that_ supposed to mean!? Who are you to speak for me?”

“I’m not having you run through any more gunfire for some idea of what we _could_ be,” he snapped. There was a look on his face that Serafina recognized as desperation. “Two of us died, if you don’t recall. You…Nina, I almost died too. I’m…you’re not going out there. I’m not going out there, and I’m not—“

“Lovino, have you heard anything from Feliciano?”

“No, nothing. He hasn’t mentioned this at all; from what Antonio said, the Sardinian forces were on the Lombard border and not the Venetian one, so I guess he just didn’t care. Wonder how Simone’s doing…” the Neapolitan man muttered as he moved to grab a piece of paper. Serafina’s face shifted from neutral to a pout very quickly.

“Don’t give a flying _fuck_ how Simone’s doing _—“_

“ _Nina._ ”

She sighed through her nose, resting her chin in one of her hands. Lovino seemed to almost be shifting off model in his anxiety, brimming over with extra lines and pouring out bright orange at his seams. It made her stomach tighten. She closed her eyes.

“This is a damn mess, Lovino. Like, _really_ a mess. It’s like…” She stopped and chuckled to herself, “…you know that scene in Don Quixote where he’s sitting there singing a love ballad out his window and then someone releases a whole net full of cats wearing bells in his room? It’s that level of chaos.”

The sharp look on his face softened, his eyes coming back into focus. She continued, pretending to not notice the change in his expression. 

“You know which one I’m talking about, right?”

Any hostility was melting off of him like butter in a warming pan. “Yes.”

“You know, I can’t usually _stand_ Spanish literature…but that was hilarious. I will give Antonio credit for Don Quixote for being worthwhile…or at least some of it. Just some of it, really.”

Lovino pressed his lips to hers, pulling her up in his arms. He was warm and gentle, arm looping around to support her back before tilting her and breaking off with a grin.

“Lovino?”

“Yes?” He asked, lifting her up while she leaned comfortably in his grasp. One hand was lightly tilting her chin up with two fingers.

“I feel like you’re trying to seduce me,” she teased, lips inches away from his. He closed the gap between them and shifted a hand to hike up her nightgown, mouth moving down to bite her bared collarbone and finally move that same hand up between her legs.

“Nina, you’re my _wife._ ”


	14. Chapter 14

_Lovino,_

_How are you doing down there? I got your letter and I’m happy to hear that all is well. I’m fine. Do you think Antine will actually succeed this time? I don’t know him as well as you do, even though we spent plenty of time together. I look to you on this matter, since it’s….lately rather relevant._

_Anyhow, have you been learning any Tuscan since Bartolo passed? I’ve taken to speaking it to myself. Maybe it’s so I can pretend that he’s still around? At any rate, it helps me remember him._

That was a concept that he was _intimately_ familiar with. He wiped his nose and kept trying to read before he was too tempted to launch into his own “memorial language”.

_I’m reading some poetry that you might like. Have you heard of Carducci? I hope you have; I sent a collection of his with this letter in case you haven’t read any yet. Or…”new” isn’t the best word. It’s two years old now, but I imagine it hasn’t been translated into Neapolitan. I sent a version in Tuscan. Let me know what you think!_

Lovino pulled at the brown paper wrapped around a book that was possibly banned in his territory and had to stifle back laughter. He would have to tell Feliciano that he couldn’t read poetry. Or he’d have to have his wife read it to him later that day. He opted for the latter, not wanting to hurt Venice’s feelings, and tucked the book under his nightstand for safekeeping before going to grab paper to write a thank you for the book and ask him, once again, how the hell he was, because there was no way Feliciano could be thriving.

~~

_He was on his knees, dragged through the dirt and gasping in his native language for someone to help, someone to let him go, and quietly praying to himself. He could feel each window that was being shattered and each bullet going through a Corsican rebel. Spare them, spare them, they just wanted to be free, oh God, stop it._

_He felt someone pulling his hair, wrenching his face up to look into another. Pale, foreign, bearded…cold. His eyes were so_ blue…

_Andria’s eyes were burning._

Andria woke up, sweating, with the name _Paoli_ on his lips. He looked over to see that his brother was still asleep. The Corsican had arrived a few days prior and they had embarked immediately out of Piedmont. “Go quickly and efficiently,” his brother had said. Something still didn’t feel right about this; Austria should not be letting them take this territory so easily.

Andria was leaving the tent, groaning quietly at the feeling of the cold air hitting his skin. There was no way he was sleeping after that, he concluded, and sat down under a tent post and rubbed his face.

“You okay?”

He turned to see Adriana in a nightgown holding a lantern. Andria had to will his cheeks to not flush at the sight.

“I’m fine. What are you doing up?”

She sits next to him and he’s got half a mind to kiss the smooth white dip of her shoulder. He doesn’t.

“Modena’s gotten a little ill. I’ve been up with her and making sure she doesn’t cough her lungs out.”

“Will she be okay in the next few days?”

“I hope so. I’m…” She runs a hand through that reddish gold hair; it sends a wave of perfume from the hair oil she uses and Andria is convinced it was intentional but doesn’t want to flatter himself. “I’m not as strong as she is, you know.”

Andria has seen her arm-wrestle her own soldiers and win; he can’t imagine that she can’t hold her own in a fight.

“You’ll be fine,” he reassures her, not knowing what to do with his arms and so keeping them glued to his sides.

~~

Antine is reading a map. He’s been doing a lot of that lately.

“The Austrians didn’t want to come across and it gave us enough time to flood the rice fields over here,” he says, pointing to a river valley. “Which means we have enough time to attack here…” He pulls a pencil out from behind his ear and marks the map, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Do we know why they’re being ‘cautious?’” asks his brother, arms crossed as he leans against a tent pole. “This seems way too easy to me.”

“They saw you and ran,” joked Antine. “They probably don’t know how many Frenchmen we’re packing.”

“I don’t want to deal with any more French people. If I have to go back to Paris after this I’m going to set something on fire.”

“Set me on fire,” Antine blurts out reflexively, and they both dissolve into laughter.

~~

There is finally an engagement between the Sardinian and Austrian armies and Antine and Andria are barreling forward, yelling and loading their guns as they go. Andria has finished loading but has elected to grab his saber, shouting in both French and Corsican to whomever will listen. He sparkles like broken glass in the madness, the energy oozing off of him giving his allies hope and his enemies a good scare. Antine can control, but he cannot _command_ ; that is Andria’s forte and it always has been. Andria looks over to lock eyes with his brother and Antine could swear that his eyes are green.

They beat back the Austrians quickly and mostly painlessly. Andria is still hollering in Corsican and people are starting to sing and cheer. Antine finds himself singing along.

~~

When Francis arrives Andria becomes a completely different person. That broken glass shine vanishes and he hunches, hair hanging in his face and eyes downcast. He sneers and growls to himself rather than sings and cavorts. It breaks Antine’s heart, but he doesn’t know what to say.

Francis gets off the train and kisses Adriana’s hand, says something to her in Tuscan and she shows interest. Andria and Tristana are off in the corner and pretending to not care.

Francis finally goes up to Antine and says that while the Sardinians have done a great job at deflecting, it’s now time to fight. Andria scoffs and Francis pretends to not hear it.

“I, for one, would love to see Antine kick his ass,” whispers Tristana.

“What, you think he can?”

“Take a look at Francis, Andria. No muscle. _I_ probably could,” she continues, “…and look at me.” She flexes a non-existent bicep, which Andria curls a large hand around and coos over teasingly.

Later that night Andria and Antine are getting ready to sleep. Andria is staring directly into the flame of the candle still burning on the makeshift desk. His fingers flick through the flames absentmindedly. Antine’s guts begin to churn.

“Andria…”

“What part of your soul did you sell for Francis to want to help you?” Andria isn’t looking up from the candle. Antine had forgotten that Andria, as a subordinate state, wasn’t allowed in government meetings with Francis.

“I—“

“Answer the question. What is he getting out of this?”

“…I offered him Savoy and Nice.”

Andria hisses to himself and Antine thinks for a moment that he’s going to knock the candle over and set his maps on fire.

“Don’t give it to him, Antine.” Andria’s corrupted blue eyes turn to look up at his older brother. He suddenly looks his actual age and Antine’s blood is running cold in his veins. “He does not deserve it.”

~~

“Tristana, it’s only getting worse—“

“I’m _fine,_ please don’t worry about me. Adriana, we know why, it’s something to just accept…”

“No.” Parma is clutching her skirts in her hands and Modena is trying to calm her down. “No, I refuse.”

“We entered this conflict with Sardinia as an ally for a reason. This is one of them. Parma, it’s time for me to go. Or at least it’ll be my time soon. I’ve…please don’t forget me, okay?”

“ _Forget_ you? Tristana, I cannot possibly _forget_ you. I…”

Tristana leans forward in bed and looks iller than before.

“Tristana, I love you.”

Tristana blinks and sits back again, dark eyes widening and then narrowing.

“Like….like as a friend?”

“No. No, _no_. Tristana Gattone, I am in love with you.”

“I…”

“Love won’t cure your illness; I know enough medicine to know that but—“

Tristana grabs Adriana and kisses her. When they finally stop, Tristana’s pale face is covered in Adriana’s lipstick. Adriana cannot help but start laughing, kissing Tristana’s cheek and making more smudges.

“I thought you didn’t see me. I thought you didn’t feel that way.”

“No, Tristana, I was trying to make you jealous.”

“Well, that worked.” Adriana laughs.

“Adriana….I want to grow old with you. Do you…do you love me like that?”

“Yes.”

“I have an idea.”

~~

_I have business to take of in town. I trust all will be well._

_FB_

“Such bullshit,” breathes Andria, scratching his back on a tree like a bear. “How does he have irons in the fire when he’s only been here for…fuck, wait, how long has he been here?”

“You forgot?”

“In hell, there are no watches.” Antine sighs and Andria cackles more to himself than at anything else.

“I trust him,” said Antine. Andria had stopped at the creek to bathe. Antine had declined the offer to wash and had instead splashed some water on his face. The women were back at camp; Tristana still had a cough and Adriana was hovering around her with increasing concern.

Corsica is half dressed when they hear the gunshots. Sardinia stands up and grabs for his rifle.

“That’s out of fucking _nowhere—“_

“Yes, that’s the typical definition of an ambush,” calls back his younger twin, grabbing his hat and pulling it down over his brow.

“Do we have an attack plan?”

Corsica has loaded his gun and is sprinting through the woods.

“I’m dying with my shirt off and my cock out like a proper seaman.”

Antine manages to snort before jumping onto their one horse and spurring it into a canter.

“ _Ame_ would be _so_ proud.”

~~

Francis would never be charged with desertion; that’s something he and Roderich had in common.

These two soldiers who were _definitely_ not deserting or fraternizing with the enemy were at a coffeehouse in the nearby town.

“Tea?” asks Francis, noticing Roderich’s drink choice.

“As if I would drink coffee here,” responds Roderich, drumming his fingers on the countertop.

“I’m surprised you would leave your… _business_ to speak with me.”

“I have others to do my work, as you probably could imagine.”

“I suppose you can count on your underling to rip a country in half.” Francis is no simpleton, but it doesn’t take a genius to know which underling the Austrian is talking about.

“Tell me, Roderich, do you read much Dumas?”

“Some. Romanticism has never been something to my taste…at least, when we’re speaking of literature. Why?”

“Oh…he wrote this little story about a pair of twins. He called it _The Corsican Brothers._ They were born conjoined but were surgically separated. As they got older, they realized that they could feel the other’s emotions and hear the other’s thoughts. One went to the city to become a lawyer and lived a very clean, methodical sort of life. The other stayed in Corsica. He was… he was a…mm, well, a freedom fighter, shall we say.” Francis shifts in his chair and leans forward, fingering his coffee spoon lightly. “Some stories are based on truth, Roderich. Andria would die rather than let anything happen to his brother. He would tear the world in half if it meant keeping Sardinia safe. The reverse is true, too. That’s why he’s here; if it were anyone else, I would have left him behind. And I do not think you want to get between that, now do you?”

Francis’s face shifts from serious to smiling (always a salesperson before a killer) and his fingers uncurl from around his coffee cup.

“I think we both know what we want to talk about, though, and I do not believe it is about what brothers will do for each other.”

“Of course. And I think you should know that you’re not getting what you want out of me. Or…not all of it, anyway.”

“Oh?”

“I can give you Lombardy,” offered Roderich coolly before looking at his nails. “That’s all you’re getting out of me.”

“You’re really not in a position to barter, Roderich,” replies Francis. “You have a _very_ motivated pair of young men on your heels, and you are decidedly outmaneuvered. I want this as quick and painless as you do—“

“I’m only giving you Lombardy.”

“That’s not—“

“Do you want Gilbert to intervene?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you wouldn’t—“

“Oh, I’m not being ridiculous. You know I could if I wanted to.”

“He hates you with a vengeance.”

“Perhaps. But he’s been watching this whole thing with _great_ interest.” Roderich hums. “All of the German states have been, but I’ve noticed he’s quite…interested in Sardinia. I’m not sure if it’s in a favorable way or in an unfavorable way. But I know that he would love an excuse to get involved, and he certainly doesn’t favor _you_ currently.”

It’s not fear Roderich sees in Francis’s eyes; he only sees his own reflection. It’s somehow worse.

“Lombardy. You are not getting Veneto from me. Feliciano is _mine._ ”

They both know that Venice belongs to Roderich to the same degree as the ocean belongs to a sailboat, but neither have the gall nor the energy to comment further on it.

“I will take Lombardy.”

~~

“What was that thing that they said about you as a slave?” calls Andria back at his brother before firing his gun.

“Are you referring to when my name became shorthand for useless?”

“YES!”

“There were _several_ things said about me,” responds Antine before stabbing and carving open an Austrian with his bayonet. The movement was lodged in his muscle memory but that did not stop the Sardinian from flinching. “What did Romulus say? _Sardi venales_ —“

“That’s what I was looking for!” Andria yells, embedding a knife between an enemy soldier’s eyes. Andria does not flinch.

When the fighting is over, Antine can see that the remaining Austrians ran off to fight and die another day. Andria is standing in the middle of the field. His eyes looked greener.

“We having fun yet?” he asks. Antine grins.

“Maybe in another few days.”

~~

They’re all sitting around a fire and Andria is getting his hands taped by Tristana. Tristana has softened in the past few days and neither of them are sure why; they think it probably has to do with Adriana, who is acting just as gently. It makes the twins mildly uncomfortable.

“What were the other things the Romans said about you?”

“Oh…besides what we talked about earlier, Cicero called me a horrible person and I got known for being a backstabbing, woolen-cloaked son of a bitch.”

“Don’t talk about our mother like that.”

“Not my words. Why do you ask?”

“I like to be reminded that I’m not necessarily the evil twin. Plus I’m trying to see if you can turn any of that into a national anthem.”

“Andria, don’t be ridiculous. My national anthem is the sound of other people having sex and then me escaping by jumping out a window.”

Andria snorts and Adriana gives Antine a light swat to the arm. Tristana looks up and suddenly addresses Antine, saying that she wants to speak with him later. Antine nods and Andria whines something about how tight the bandages are. He goes off eventually to God knows where and Antine is alone with Parma and Modena.

“Sardinia…we’ve been thinking.”

“Hmm?” Antine takes a drink from a chipped cup of water.

“Sardinia, we…we want to give you our territory.” Antine chokes.

“That’s…that’s kind of you, but I don’t really—“

“Tristana’s dying.” Modena’s face quickly turns down to look down at her hands.

“What?”

“Tristana. She’s sick. She’s dying because of her economic situation and from the strain of war. If we sever the connection, she’ll heal. If we become human it’ll give her more time. It’ll give us…” Adriana grabs Tristana’s hand. “…it’ll give us more time. Just a little more time. Just enough.”

Antine takes a breath and begins to respond—

“Antine, please. We’ll be okay. We’ve lived long lives; we can adopt some kids and move to the countryside and get old…get old together.” Tristana’s face moves to nestle into Adriana’s shoulder. “Speak with your bosses. Merge our territories and take them for your own.”

“I—“

“ _Please._ We’re ready. It will be peaceful. Once everything is signed away and we haven’t any landmass, we will soon forget we were anything other than human. We’ll live out our lives together and die after half a century. It’s for the best.”

Antine licks his lips nervously.

“Okay.”

~~

Antine is in a room with Francis some-odd weeks later, some office in Turin. Francis insisted that they meet above the muck and grime of the battlefield. Antine still smells a bit like lead. Francis opens with a sentence that makes Antine’s neck tingle.

“I made a deal with Roderich,”

“You what?”

Francis smiles triumphantly.

“I’m getting you Lombardy. He’s coming to sign Simone over to you; he’ll be here in a few minutes. The war will be over. You will be able to go home.”

The door opens and Antine’s heart drops into his gut. The envelope is pressed into Antine’s chapped brown hands and Antine stops before pressing his lips together. Andria’s words are stamping their feet between his ears: _He does not deserve it._

“So just out of curiosity, the idea is that I get Lombardy and you get all my francophone territories?”

“Savoy and Nice, yes. Per our agreement.”

“So you want me to hold up my side of the bargain while you don’t hold up yours? You want me to accept a deal you made without my consent?”

Francis falters and while Antine can’t look over at Roderich (he doesn’t trust himself to), he figures Roderich is surprised too.

“The agreement was that I give you Savoy and Nice when I receive Lombardy-Veneto. I was given Lombardy,” he says, shaking the envelope demonstratively, “…but I don’t have Veneto. So if you want to hang up your coat on getting me Lombardy and think that you can pull Savoy and Nice out of me before you complete your side of the bargain, you are _mistaken._ ”

Francis is leaning forward in his chair, resting a cheek in his hand with a performative sort of idleness, and it makes Antine’s blood boil. Roderich’s presence is already making him sweat.

“Antine, sometimes you have to compromise—“

“Compromise? This is not compromise. You have barely done anything. We’ve campaigned for only a few months. This? This is you trying to scam me.”

“Come now—“

“Do you think I was born yesterday, Francis? I am older than you. I am older than both of you combined,” Antine finally breaks his vow and looks at Roderich. The Sardinian’s shoulders tensed and Francis rolls his eyes.

“Oh, come on, Antine, don’t be a little devil like your brother. You’re better than that.”

Antine flinched. _Devil._

“What is that supposed to mean, _better_ than him? Is it because I play the piano instead of the _cetera_? Is it because I speak Spanish and German to you all instead of my native language? Is it because I wear a waistcoat instead of a navy uniform and check the time with a silver watch instead of the sun? I’m _civilized,_ not too foreign or strange for you?”

“You’re overreacting—“

“Shut up.” Francis actually shuts up and it’s something that leaves Roderich too stunned to respond.

“You call my little brother a devil _._ What do you know about the devil, Francis? I know a lot about what you think of the devil. You know where your devils come from? No, of course you don’t. Well, like I said, I’m old. I’ve lived long enough to see my mother and uncle’s gods turned to devils. Names from our family’s pantheon like _Baal_ turned to _Beelzebub._ My mother’s name was _Ashtoreth,_ which was how her people called the goddess _Ishtar. Astarot_ became a Duke of Hell, a member of the Evil Trinity. They literally demonized her, demonized _us,_ to keep people from thinking we’d contributed things to society. You did something similar, didn’t you, some one hundred years ago? You bought Andria like cattle. French is black and blue on his mouth from where you beat it into him. What was the name you gave him? Marcel Menton, wasn’t it? And now you make him wear pretty clothes and keep him in Paris and away from his own territory. You want something cleaner, something paler, something more palatable. Something like _me._ Don’t you dare call Andria a devil.”

He rattles the envelope and gets up out of his chair. He is almost out the door when Francis and Roderich hear his closing statement:

“I’ll show you a devil.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN:   
> Paoli: Pasquale Paoli was the leader of the Corsican resistance against the French takeover of Corsica.   
> Ame: Phoenician word for "mother"


	15. Chapter 15

_Commanders et al:_

_How many men do you have at your disposal? Please write back with your available troops and armaments. I have an idea. I will write to all of you again once all of you have responded._

_Yours, as always,_

_Antine Pecora, a.k.a. Sardinia_

“Signor Pecora, where exactly do you think you’re going?

“I’m running a few errands for a couple days. I will be back soon.”

“I don’t recall asking—“

“Good. You didn’t. I’m leaving. Can't possibly be avoided. Bye.”

~~

Ten years in Naples and ten years in Palermo was how they kept their marriage balanced.

That had been the idea, at least; they usually just stayed in Naples. This, however, was one of those times where Lovino had suddenly felt restless and they had moved to her city house in Palermo to give him a change of pace.

He’d been frenetic, soft to hard to dark to sparkling and it made Serafina uneasy. He had always been moody, but how he shifted had been as regular as the clock that chimed on his mantle. This was a shapeless sort of paranoia and discomfort that she had never seen on him before.

Most everything lately had been setting on her gut like a thick layer of oil. She felt swollen and conflicted in both a physical and a spiritual sense; the hardness of her body had shifted to a maternal sort of softness that she didn’t necessarily dislike, but it was a state of being she was unaccustomed to. It settled just on top of the decades of muscle she’d accumulated and like most fat she collected, seemed seconds away from melting off of her. She had some idea of what the cause was but didn’t want to broach the subject with herself (or anyone else) quite yet.

“Parma and Modena are retiring,” she had said offhandedly. Lovino had asked for an elaboration.

“I got a letter from Adriana. She and Tristana are settling down. They’re going to live in the hills and adopt eight kids and be in love until they get old and die together.”

Serafina took a very long breath before sipping her coffee.

“I want to do that,” she said quietly. Lovino looked up quickly from the letter he’d been reading from Feliciano.

“Do you actually? Or are you just saying that?”

She turned her head and pursed her lips before saying that yes, she’d been considering retirement and had been for a while now. The look on her face was somewhere on the spectrum of playfulness and melancholy.

“We could get a nice house, you and I, away from everything. Have a ton of kids and name them after old saints and kings. Forget all of this; we’d just be people. You’d get old and fat on my cooking and play _bocce_ with the men in the nearby village and you’d smell like sweat and tobacco. I’d let my hair get grey. I’d never stray far from the house and I’d be constantly either pregnant or about to be pregnant. We’d go to church every Sunday. I’d lose my sense of smell from all the chili pepper in my food…”

She rubbed her eyes with one hand and kept talking while Lovino sat down in front of her.

“…and you know they would be such _pretty_ kids. We’d live long enough to see _them_ get married and we would feel _old_ at the age of fifty instead of five hundred and—“

“Nina.”

She stopped. His big, callused hands enveloped her smaller, equally worn ones.

“You know I want that. I probably want it even more than you do. But you know we can’t. I can’t leave my brother like that, and neither can you.”

She sighed through her nose.

“Plus, I can’t imagine that retiring would change your personality so much that you’d stay at home and chronically pregnant for the rest of your life.”

Her face stayed somber and he gave one of her hands a squeeze.

“You’d be out shooting birds in the woods, playing dice, and drinking people under the table just like before. Retirement doesn’t mean you’d be less of a danger to society. Only difference is you’d look older.”

She finally broke into a genuine smile and laughed.

“ _Fuck_ , you’re right.”

“I usually am.”

“Lovino, you know…if we ever age and I’m still a menace…”

“Yes?”

“I get away with so much because I’m so pretty. If I stop being attractive, do you think people will love me less?”

She scooted herself around to rest on his shoulder.

“Nina…”

“Will you still love me when I don’t look like this?”

“You’re such a pain in the ass.”

“Answer the question.”

“Nina, I will love you when you’re toothless and your face is full of liver spots….with your tits down to your knees.”

“To my knees?”

“Yes. But are you going to still care about me when I don’t look this _painfully_ handsome?”

“I’ll love you when you’re a wrinkly, limp-dicked old man with balls that sag to your ankles.”

“Great.”

“Glad we established that.”

~~

Salvatore had only been in London for about three days and he was already growing tired of it. Arthur seemed to have noticed; his self-deprecation was getting more intense and Salvatore assumed that this was an invitation for Salvatore to say ‘no, Arthur, that’s not true’, but Salvatore was not in the mood at this point to do so and instead let Arthur keep insulting himself.

“Arthur, perhaps your involvement in Hong Kong has made you a little overworked,” he had interjected at one point. The Maltese man at this point stood at eye level with the Englishman; a far cry to how small he’d been when Arthur had taken him away.

“Mind your business, lad.”

He’d taken the guest room across from the little Chinese boy that Arthur had “taken in.” He could hear him crying sometimes. He would occasionally stay up with him and let him cry in his first language. Malta couldn't understand what he was saying, but he was a solid presence next to the child Arthur referred to as "Leon". He hoped that it was enough in some sense. 

He’d been having dreams about his sister. Serafina bleeding, Serafina screaming, Serafina with a bullet down her throat. He was in the odd position of being younger than her but having reached adulthood earlier than her.

He was wondering if Leon, who was growing so quickly, was having dreams like that about his family, too. 

~~

Antine’s hobbies included singing, playing piano, drinking, duck hunting, reading German poetry, horticulture, taking long walks, and lock picking.

People usually only remembered the first three.

 _Maybe breaking into Arthur’s house is a bad idea,_ he thought to himself. _Maybe I should just get back on the boat and pretend none of this happened._

 _Bullshit,_ he replied to his voice of reason as Arthur’s lock finally gave way.

Arthur he’d been expecting. Salvatore he had not been expecting. He was a tad disappointed to see that Arthur barely reacted to the breaking and entering. Arthur, instead of jumping or crying out like Antine had hoped, actually laughed bitterly before pinching and rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“How long, exactly, have you been sitting in that armchair?”

“Depends,” replied the Sardinian before templing his fingers. “Are we measuring in minutes passed or bottles of fine cognac consumed?”

“Well I suppose that depends on how fast do you go through a bottle of cognac?”

“Don’t ask a question you’re not ready to hear the answer to.”

“Noted. I’m sure, however, that you’re not here for my alcohol. Is there something else I can help you with?”

Salvatore sat silently behind his _mentor_ , leaning casually on the black umbrella he used in lieu of a cane. Antine was relieved to see that he was alright, but was not in a position to comment on it.

“I want to ask for a favor.”

“Are you in a place to do that?”

“Not necessarily,” said Antine, casually helping himself to his God-knew-how-manyth glass of cognac. Judging from the color, it was not Arthur’s favorite, which was the only reason Antine had not yet been nailed by his necktie to the doorframe.

“What’s the favor?” Arthur shifted quickly from the self-flagellation of his interaction with kind, gentle, _frightening_ Salvatore to the businesslike camaraderie of two old men about to engage in yet another deal, another chess match.

“I want you to help me take the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and make them my wards.”

Antine noted Salvatore tensing up and found that he didn’t particularly care. When Salvatore left the entry and went back outside of the house, Arthur still had yet to answer.

“So Sicily.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me, Antine, how do you think that will work?”

“I assume you will let me do the talking and you will provide the materials necessary for my speech to have some…punctuation.”

“You think I’m going to show up with a gun and point it at Lovino Vargas and/or Serafina Pavone and it will end in anything other than disaster?”

“Point taken.”

“I will give you help with…whatever exactly you’re doing in Sicily and Naples. I will come down personally. But I am not aiding with any takeover unless Sicily or Romano attacks first.”

“Fair. Also very French.”

“I’m going to ignore that and also not call the police. I expect you to leave now.”

“I will leave now. I will take the cognac.”

“You will not.”

“Yes I will.”

Antine was already out of Arthur’s grasp before Arthur could object. He was out the door and had said no goodbye.

Antine took down the last dregs of the bottle and casually threw it into the thicket of trees just off from the sidewalk.

“Antine, can I give you some advice?”

Antine turned to see his no-longer-such-a-baby cousin leaning against the house’s wall.

“About what?”

“Someone you could call who might not bite you the way Arthur will. I don’t think you can storm out of a deal with him the same way you could with Francis.”

“I—“

“Word gets around very quickly. Arthur was only willing to help you because of that story. But someone I know who can help you is Teutonic.”

“Teutonic?”

Salvatore shook his head and scratched the back of his head.

“Apologies, old names die hard. Prussia. Gilbert Bielschmidt.”

“Do you have his address?”

“Off the top of my head, in fact. He’s an old friend. _Very_ old.”

Salvatore pulled out a small piece of paper and wrote a few lines, breathing out heavily and turning a pair of grey eyes to meet Antine’s spectacles.

“You’re not going to hurt Nina, right? With all of this unification business? You’ll keep her safe?”

“She’s perfectly capable of doing that on her own.”

“I don’t care what she can do. Will you keep her safe?”

“I will keep your older sister safe, Salvatore.”

~~

Sicily loved Romano, but she could not stay soft anymore, especially now that she was certain as to what was causing her body’s changes.

 

_Salvatore,_

_Sorry for the short notice. Do you know anyone who would be willing to ally with us regarding the…how shall I put this, the Cause of our people?_

_I miss you very much. I hope Settimo is doing well. I may come and visit him (and you) soon._

_Are you eating?_

_Nina_

\--

_Monsieur Bielschmidt,_

_I would like to meet with you about a potential alliance against a common enemy. Please let me know if you are available. I await your prompt reply._

_Sincerely,_

_Serafina P. Vargas_

~~

Antine had one last detour before going back home to figure out what his next move was.

He knelt in front of a small, beautiful little girl of no more than eleven.

“Monaco,” he said gently, kissing her little hand. “It is good to see you.”

“Likewise. What brings you here?”

“Monaco, you are currently a part of my territory, but I may be giving you up. I want to know: would you become a part of my kingdom if it included the rest of Italy?”

“No, sir.”

He looked up into her round face and those wise eyes.

“You understand that if you will not become Italian, that leaves you to either fend off the French on your own or to become a French territory?”

“I accept those risks.”

He nodded curtly and got back up.

“Please be careful, Monaco.”

“I will be.”

~~

Antine was sitting in front of a map of Italy and Antine wished he were a lot more drunk than he actually was. Sicily or Naples?

Lovino he knew was still struggling with the dead Republic. The last time Antine’d seen him he’d been talking about guns and he’d seen that Lovino had broken out into a sweat. Lovino he couldn’t incite into fighting.

Serafina was the obvious choice. Serafina had been cooped up in her home playing house with her husband for the past twelve years. It wasn’t possible that she wasn’t getting stir crazy.

Sicily or Naples? Which of his friends to sell to the devil? Take the land of his cousin by blood or take the land of his younger brother in everything but family tree?

He was starting to wonder why Arthur had agreed to help with this other than the fact that Sardinia had honored his tradition of stiffing the French. Although he appreciated the firepower—

Firepower. Fire. Volcano. Sicily was volcanic, _obnoxiously so_ ; she had an outrageous amount of sulfur at her disposal. What needed sulfur? That exact firepower that Arthur had an abundance of. He was in it to take some sulfur.

 _Fuck,_ even when he made deals with people as _himself_ people were thinking about his cousin. Roderich’s face flashed across his vision for a split second.

“Worthless,” he muttered to himself as he circled a spot on his cousin’s island in pencil.

If Arthur wanted Serafina, he could have her. It wasn’t his problem anymore.

~~

“I’m going back to Naples.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know.”

_Don’t leave me something’s wrong I’m scared I just want it to stop and I’m—_

“Okay.”

~~

_Arthur,_

_We’re going to Sicily._

_AP_

_Antine,_

_I will ask for elaboration in person later on. Mine or yours? If mine, don’t break my lock again. They’re expensive._

_AK_

~~

A Prussian man sat in front of his desk with two letters. One was in shy, deferent German (how this foreigner managed to sound shy in high German was a mystery to him) and the other was just short of being an order. The second was in French.

_Do I answer the shy one first or do I answer the demanding one first?_

_Both. I answer both._

He grinned to himself as he penned the first response. He’d give them the same day; whoever got their first and whoever gave him the best case would be the one he’d give aid to.

~~

Lovino could somehow feel the first bullet shot in Marsala. Riots manifested in him as migraines; the invasion and upheaval cut through his skull like a hot knife through butter.

“I have to go back to Sicily,” he gasped to a minister. “I’m sorry, I have to—something’s wrong—“

Somewhere in Palermo, Serafina pitched forward, dropping a vase and falling amongst the shards. Riots manifested themselves in her as seizures. The last thing she managed before completely losing consciousness was not falling on her belly.

Both saw a pair of eye-obscuring, bluish-grey tinted glasses flash through their vision.

~~

Serafina woke up alone to someone knocking on her door. It was too late for it to be anything good, she noted, pulling on her dressing gown before moving to answer it. She knew damn well who it was by the shepherd’s hook of a silhouette in her doorway and the dreams she had been having. _Antine._

Serafina opened the door and he didn’t know if it was the light of the candle she was holding or if she was actually glowing with rage.

“Oh, no, no, no, fuck you, you double-crossing son of a _bitch_ —“

“Serafina—“

Someone behind him said something in English and Antine swore that the lick of flame on the candlestick in her hands grew by half an inch.

“Snakes keeping company with other snakes?” she asked, her tone almost childlike.

“Oh, _come on_ , do you want a Republic or not?”

She stopped.

“What?”

He pulled his hands out of his pockets to spread his fingers in her face in some bizarre attempt at calming her.

“This was just a means to an end. I’m giving control back to you soon enough. It was just a measure to…make a statement. We’re trying to unify Italy. Are you with me or not?”

Serafina looked up to her bedroom, to the cats wandering the house…to her husband’s spare coat hanging on a hook in the parlor. She looked back at her cousin.

“Wait here.”

“One thing. I can’t properly take over unless you start a conflict.”

“Yeah, sure, hang on—“

She left him at the doorstep. He turned back to look at Arthur, whose lips were pressed in a tight line.

“That went surprisingly smoothly…” Arthur muttered, scratching his chin. He hadn’t shaved and Antine could only barely tell, the red-blond barbs of stubble poking out over Arthur’s cheeks and jaw.

Serafina ran into her bedroom to throw on her husband’s trousers, a padded shirt, and a tattered red cloak before grabbing the rifle and pistols gathering dust in the back of their closet. She checked them: all were loaded. One was a wedding gift restored to her after her royal pardon, the other something borrowed from an innkeeper. She would have to pay her respects, she decided, running back down the stairs to the door still resting open.

It took her maybe five minutes to come back; Antine quickly recognized that the brawny, wild-eyed hotspur he knew so well had been lurking about half a centimeter below the surface.

He was about to say something when Serafina ran directly past him and towards Arthur, who seemingly hadn’t noticed the look in her eyes and was already thinking of the sulfur.

“Well, Sicily, there’s one thing I—“

No one was more surprised than Arthur to be getting punched in the face. The force of the blow sent him spinning into the wall before falling to the ground. Serafina turned to look at her cousin.

“There’s your initiation of a conflict. Or should I keep initiating?”

Arthur was trying to reset his jaw while Antine coughed awkwardly into his fist.

“That’ll, that’ll do, Nina.”

“Two things. I’m sure I deserved that, for starters—“

“You did, you white son of a bitch—“

“—but I noticed that your punch was weaker than last time?”

“I’m somewhat out of practice. Do you want me to hit you again?”

“No, just a comment.”

“There’s a horse for you amongst the volunteers. Do you have everything you need?”

“As much as I can get in the next few hours.”

“Right. Come on then?”

“Yep.”

She found herself swiveling in the saddle to look back at her home as it grew smaller and smaller.

_Sorry, Lovino. We’re getting involved._


	16. Chapter 16

“So the idea,” started Antine, chewing the back of his pencil, “is to start from the bottom and go up.”

“That doesn’t take a map to know,” snorted Arthur.

“Fuck off, let me finish.”

Antine’s pencil glided up through the southern half of the Italian peninsula. The tip of his tongue stuck out between his lips. Serafina was watching his diagramming with her usual level of intensity, but Arthur looked bored. His face was still purpling from where Sicily’s fist had connected with it, which Antine had to keep from smiling at whenever he saw it.

“We still haven’t finished down here, but once we do it should be easy to cut through Calabria and deliver a killing—“

Antine quickly corrected himself when he saw Serafina’s eyes widen and her fists ball up at her sides.

“—a finishing blow to Naples’s army, and we can all go home to our beautiful new government and live happily ever after.”

“They’re really not being very effective,” Arthur remarked, shifting in his chair. “It’s as if they’ve all been sitting on their asses for the past ten years or something.”

She did not have much, Sicily. She had very little money. She had little time. She had, most importantly, little patience for Arthur Kirkland; she was especially not in the mood to suffer a fool, most especially not an arrogant one.

“Lovino hasn’t been in the mood to do many military drills given that he was shot at point blank range by his former caretaker,” she replied sharply. “He subsequently has a lot of pain surrounding combat. Guns leave a bad taste in his mouth.”

Arthur shut up.

“We’re going to go for it and take Lovino as well. Pluck him right out of the way, like a stray hair.”

Serafina took her own moment of silence. Arthur nodded and left the tent to do God knew what.

“Antine, I…”

“Do you want your republic? Does Lovino want that republic? This is what it’s going to take. You can’t make porridge without boiling milk.”

“You’re going to boil him now? Your brother already shot him. Leave him alone.”

“Nina—“

“I’ll help you because I already said I would, but it’s Lovino’s call as to whether or not he gets involved with you and this attempt at unification. I can’t speak for him as to what he wants and doesn’t want; that’s not my job. It is _our_ decision if we stay with you. You are not carting us off to Torino in an envelope like you did with Simone. Lovino’s not putting in his full effort; that’s obvious to anyone with eyes or any sense of who he is as a person. You know why he’s not putting the effort? It’s not just because of the…hesitation from the last uprising. It’s also because he doesn’t want to hurt you.”

She leaned forward and Antine felt a very sudden and intimate fear of the canine teeth she was baring while she spoke.

“And if you don’t extend that same courtesy to him, then I’ll extend something else at you. Got it?”

Antine wasn’t able to respond before Sicily had whirled back around to leave the tent. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the tent ceiling before drawing some more on the map.

 _Well…no one said I_ couldn’t _go to Naples. So I’m going to fucking go to Naples._

He put his pencil down. He’d cross that bridge when he got there; he still had plenty to deal with presently.

~~

It did not take long for him to finish with taking the rest of Sicily.

Antine has always been at home in mountains more than in beaches; he was relieved to find that the mainland’s terrain quickly ceded to the latter after making it past the sandy Calabrian shores.

“He’s not going to be at the front,” he told his cohorts. “He’ll be in the back with the wounded. We grab him and we make it clean and quick.”

Serafina was silent and had been silent for a long time. It was making Antine uncomfortable.

“Do you think we should change into something possibly less…conspicuous?”

Antine looked down at his red shirt.

“No.”

Arthur was quiet and Antine felt the need to say something.

“You don’t think much of Lovino, do you?”

Arthur started laughing.

“You think I don’t think much of Romano? You know he’s been stabbing Russia in the foot for an undetermined amount of time?”

“…what?”

“I’m surprised your cousin didn’t tell you. He’s been squaring off with the Russians since Crimea. Ivan’s not respecting the treaty; your friend is the reason the Mediterranean isn’t Russian controlled. I want to get a better idea of who he is…at least, if I am allowed.”

Antine thought back to the man who had flung his brother out of the way like a drowned rat carcass. Lovino had been fending off _that_ this whole time?

“I’ll leave you to thank him for that when we find him.”

“I’m not a sailor.”

Arthur sniggered into his hand before looking down the sheer cliff-face.

“I would ask if you were a mountain man, but we’re definitely lost. Where exactly do you belong? The farm? The bank? Behind a desk? What is your problem with the ocean, anyhow?”

“The ocean is like making love to a woman.”

“I agree, but in what manner are you referring to?”

“It comes up in conversation a lot, I know fucking nothing about it, and I don’t care to.”

~~

Was Lovino necessarily ready to keep fighting? No. Was he happy with surrendering? Absolutely fucking not.

He’d been pulled away from his work by three men in dress uniform, which made him certain (besides the deep, thrumming pain at the apex of his cranium) that the Sardinians had won and that they, the Neapolitans, were going to stop fighting.

They were speaking in hushed dialect when Lovino saw someone familiar out of the corner of his eye. Someone he wanted to have a word with. Several words, in fact.

“Give me a moment, gentlemen,” he interjected before leaving them abruptly.

Antine looked up to see Lovino striding purposefully towards him. He adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat. Lovino could practically taste the meekness in Antine’s tone and it somehow made him angrier.

Somehow Antine’s diplomatic shyness didn’t save him from a punch to the stomach that sent him flying backwards with the same force as a cannon ball. His glasses flew off his face to some corner of the encampment. Lovino did not go to grab them and instead continued to advance.

“What the flying _fuck_ is wrong with you, who the good goddamn do you think you’re _dealing_ with, Antine, you…you will—“

Lovino was kicking Antine, who was now in the fetal position on the ground.

“—you can’t come into _my_ home and give my—“

Serafina had to physically lift her husband off of the Sardinian and hold him aloft for a good ninety seconds before Lovino finally stopped.

“Lovino, let him explain.”

Antine sat crosslegged on the ground with a hand firmly placed over his eyes.

“If someone could go fetch my glasses—“

Serafina turned her head towards a soldier and gestured for him to do so. The soldier, seeing this young woman lifting a hefty Neapolitan soldier off the ground with relative ease, decided that disobeying her was not a risk worth taking on and obliged.

“Nina, put me down.”

Serafina was choking back laughter in spite of herself.

“Will you behave, Pino?”

“Are you in on this too? Is this a coup?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Just as I suspected. Mutiny. Subterfuge. And other long words for you all fucking me over. Put me down, Nina.”

“Again, Pino, will you behave?”

“I might.”

She finally obliged, leaving Lovino to rub at the areas where his wife’s arms had gripped so tightly.

“Antine, start talking.”

“I have Lombardy, Parma, Modena and Tuscany’s territory and this was my one last fling at uniting Italy and giving you the Republic that you nearly died for.”

The scar on Lovino’s chest began to throb.

“Are you with me, Lovino? Do you want to be with your brother?”

“Th-that’s not…I mean, yes, but…”

“I’m going to rephrase that. Do you want what we had in Rome? Unity? A group of people working towards being the best thing the world has ever seen, including things like _mirto_ and _carasau_?”

Lovino rolled his eyes.

“You are so _fucking_ Sardinian. It’s embarrassing.”

“It’s as if it’s my job. Again, are you with me or no?”

Serafina and Lovino exchanged glances before Lovino’s hand found Serafina’s.

“I’m with you under one condition: we take Venice. You can have my territory if we get Venice. Not before, not after.”

Antine nodded.

“Deal. So do you support me? Do you support the Republic?”

Lovino took a very deep breath, his hand squeezing around his wife’s.

“We support you.”

~~

_Sardinia,_

_While I would gladly help, I am indisposed for a very long time. I will meet with you no later than today in 1866. Assuming there is still a conflict, I will gladly help then._

_Good luck,_

_Prussia_

“Now that’s just fucking _bullshit._ ” He crumpled up the response and threw it in the burlap sack that contained the scraps from his dinner. “No matter. I’ll deal with this myself. I’m almost done, anyway.”

_Sicily,_

_While I would gladly help, I am indisposed for a very long time. I will meet with you no later than today in 1866. Assuming there is still a conflict, I will gladly help then._

_Good luck,_

_Prussia._

Serafina folded up the response and went to look at what the date was before writing the date down on the back of the paper. And wrote it again. And again. And again. And again. She would remember if it was the last thing she did, if not just because she wanted to see if Prussia himself would forget in such a long span of time.

~~

Sardinian troops passed very quickly through the territory that the Papal States was doing a terrible job of defending. They did not need Antine’s help. He’d left the front at Gaeta and was standing, solitary, at the border between the central territories and Veneto.

The smell of coffee inexplicably hit his nose and he coughed, immediately thinking of Roderich. His stomach turned and he sat down on the ground, looking over the mountaintop and taking a deep, shaky breath.

 _You have perfect pitch._ He scratched his chin and smiled bitterly. He should be over it by now. He wasn’t. It was getting more and more obvious to him that it wasn’t. His back was bowing at the weight of his memory of Roderich’s voice.

_Worthless._

What exactly was he supposed to do? Find someone else to fall in love with? Someone else to call him names? Should he find someone else to not return his affections? Why should he keep suffering for being a fucking idiot?

Was he going to engage the Austro-Hungarian Empire for the third time in about two decades? He pinched himself at the fact that he would endanger so many people if it meant Roderich would see him as a person.

 _He has a wife,_ he thought. _Be happy for him and his wife._

He _was_ happy for him and his wife; they were a good match for each other. She clearly loved him and he loved her. There was nothing better, right? Roderich was happy with her. That was what was important. So why was this fixation lodged so firmly under his skin? Why was he still freezing up at the thought of not only seeing Roderich, but fighting him? Why was he constantly spinning between anger and despair at the thought of seeing Roderich on the battlefield again?

He remembered having Roderich in his sights back when he took Milan. It made him want to vomit.

He’d promised Lovino his brother. He’d promised Veneto.

He got up from his perch on the mountainside and briefly considered jumping. _Nah_ , he finally decided.

The good died young, he mused. That was why he had lived. That was why he was going to stay alive.

Lovino was not going to get Veneto. Antine was going to go home.

~~

Lovino, Serafina and Simone were seated in a small room. Lovino was physically separating his wife from Lombardy after Simone had called her something vile that he didn’t want to repeat and Serafina had nearly pulled a knife on him.

“I think my father would have done a better, cleaner job at this. Sardinia’s all over the place.”

“That’s irrelevant, given that your father’s fucking dead.” Simone went silent before smiling tightly, looking down at the ring on his finger.

“Furthermore, your father was a businessman, not a conqueror,” continued Lovino flatly. “He would have scammed all of us out of our livelihoods to make a profit.”

“He’s the reason you’re still here, if I heard correctly.”

Lovino sighed and only barely capitulated.

“People are complicated. He saved my life, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a bastard. He wasn’t a good person, Simone.”

Simone did not look up from his inspection of his nails.

“At least my father wanted me.”

Lovino laughed before backhanding Simone so hard that Simone fell out of his chair. Serafina was out of hers to grab him before he could do any more damage. He was spitting, snarling, _raging_ in Neapolitan and Simone was on the ground, nursing his battered cheek.

~~

Antine sat in a room with his superiors and king.

“Did the Kingdom of Two Sicilies hold the plebiscite?”

“Sicily and Romano both pledged their loyalty to me…to us. The people within their territories voted to ally with the Kingdom of Sardinia.”

“We’re going to annex their territory.” Antine stopped. _What?_

“Let’s wait, ah?”

“No. We’ve already waited. They voted. It’s been the goal. Give me the paper. We have a house where you will all live with two extra rooms for those two.”

“Two, not one?”

“That marriage document under the Bourbons, given that they are no longer Bourbons, will most likely be nulled. Unless they were married by the Catholic Church and not their government?”

“Sir—“

“We’ll keep the dictatorship over Sicily for the time being,” replied Victor Emmanuel II, casually signing the document that would potentially end Serafina and Lovino’s lives.

Serafina had wanted a republic. Lovino had wanted his brother. They were getting neither of those things. _Sorry…_

~~

Serafina’s arms went slack and she fell forward into Lovino’s back. Lovino doubled over and barely managed to catch her, falling to his knees as his nose began to bleed.

“ _What the fuck—“_

Simone was still standing over the two of them. Lovino crouched over Sicily, pulling her motionless body close to check her pulse.

“Tell me something. What all did he promise you?”

Lovino wiped his freely bleeding nose, looking at Simone through the sharp pain in his sinuses before cradling Nina closer to him.

“He said we were going to rebuild a Republic.”

Simone began laughing.

“You’re both idiots. _Idiots._ You just—you completely fell for it? I can’t believe you’re _that_ stupid."

"Antine's a man of his word." That just made Simone laugh even harder, the noise pealing out of him like a death knoll.

"Mercy, he played you like a _harp_ , then. He doesn’t care about you. He just wants your territory, same as he did with Parma and Modena.”  Lovino began to tense up, the clenching of his jaw making the blood from his nose just pulse out faster. 

“If you’re here, you “fell for it” as well—“

“No, I didn’t fall for anything, he grabbed me out of my bed in my sleep and dragged me to his home because Roderich signed me away. He annexed me without my consent; he annexed you—“

“We don't know if we've been—“

“Your lady fair—and I use that term _very_ loosely—is clearly comatose and you suddenly have a bloody nose. He’s stripped you of your land.” The young, dark-eyed Lombard chuckled darkly, arms akimbo as he leered down at Lovino. “It looks like you’ve been hung, _Fra Diavolo_.”

Lovino’s mouth began to feel very dry.

~~

Far away from the chaos of a certain coerced annexation in the Mediterranean, a Prussian soldier was thinking about beauty.

He’d seen waterfalls, cliff faces, the stark desert and the ancient, sprawling jewel of Jerusalem. He’d been to Paris and the seaside and seen glaciers off the side of Scandinavian coasts. He’d seen babies and midsummer feasts and several different types of flower, lake, hill, and dale.

Not one of those things was more beautiful than Erzsebet’s unclothed back. He reached out to stroke it with the back of his hand, brows knitting together in silent contemplation.

“Is there something wrong?”

She looked back at him. He knew what she was going to say but part of him was thinking she wouldn’t say it.

“Gil, this can’t continue.”

“Why not, exactly?” He knew why that was, too, but wanted to hear her say it. It would somehow make it more concrete; make it something for him to chew on late at night when she was gone.

“Roderich and I…well, we’re renewing our vows, since we’re past the human lifespan.”

“What, is it to respect him somehow? You know he wouldn’t _care,_ Erzsi.” He sat up, tracing his hand further up her spine. His chin rested idly in the cup of his other hand, propped up by his elbow on his bare thigh. Her eyes narrowed slightly. _God,_ he felt dizzy—

“That’s not the point and you know it.”

“You can just have us both?”

“Gil, don’t be ridiculous. I can’t marry two people—“

“Ah, ah, ah, I never said anything about _marriage,_ you’re getting carried away, I just said you could have us both.” His shoulders flexed in a shrug.

“It’s not proper. It’s not done. It’s—it’s…time consuming.”

He finally started laughing. She got up and away from his hands, picking up the clothes she’d discarded and began the long, arduous process of putting them back on.

“And _there_ comes the truth. Erzsi’s not a prude, she’s just _tired._ ”

“I made a commitment to _him,_ not you, alright? That isn’t going to change. It’s over. Okay?”

Gilbert’s tongue poked out of his thin lips to wet them.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fra Diavola: famous anti-French Neapolitan resistance fighter who famously died by hanging after being caught.


	17. Chapter 17

There was a boat cutting through a Maltese harbor. A man stood at the pier to meet it, grey eyes fixed on its bow and completely unflinching. His dog circled at his feet before sitting beside him, tail thumping impatiently as the boat grew nearer. His mouth curved into a smile when he finally saw her, finally could make out the thick curls of her hair and the dark glow of her skin as she peered over to look for him. He was sure he didn’t stick out to her at this point; from his distance, he was just another brown-skinned man in a suit. But she stuck out so much on the ship from Italy; the people next to her were a good two shades lighter and had hair much straighter.

She practically sprinted off the boat to embrace him. He had grown enormously since the last time she had seen him; it was thus no feat for him to lift her off her feet when he returned her embrace. She kissed his cheeks and when he put her down she began to give him that sort of motherly scrutiny that he had lived without since the beginning of the century; he tried to pretend that he wasn’t blushing.

“Sister, you—“

“Sasà, I have not _seen_ you in decades, will you let me—“ She straightened his lapels before remarking that he needed to eat more, ignoring the fact that he was now a head taller than her and his shoulders spanned her arms in length. He shifted his weight off of his bad leg and adjusted the umbrella in his hands before clearing his throat.

“Anyhow. Business…” She nodded and they left the pier, Nina’s fingers trailing down for Malta’s dog to nibble at.

“From what Settimo has told me, you have been treating him very well.”

“Like royalty.” Malta’s voice halted and he scratched at his beard. “Or, well, ahh—“

“It’s okay.”

“Nina…” He looked at his older sister, physically younger than him, who was staring directly ahead and looked as if she would rather not talk about the topic he was about to bring up. “Are you alright?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know Sardinia was going to do that to you? When all that happened? I, well, I heard stories—“

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Nina—“

 _“Salvatore,_ ” she snapped before turning a street corner, delicately lifting up her skirt to dodge a puddle. “It’s not up for discussion. It has been done. I can’t undo it. I don’t have that power anymore. It’s over. It’s…it’s over for any idea of me by myself.”

She turned, finally, to look at him. He was struck by how much physically smaller she was in front of him than she’d been in his memories. But her bearing and tone, inborn with a level of authority he would never possess, reminded him that he was still the younger brother, still smaller than her, still going to do whatever she said.

“But that is what a Republic can be born out of. Many people coming together to work towards a common goal. And that’s more important than me by myself.” She craned her head. “He lives here, yes?”

“Yes.”

She knocked on the door and an old man opened it. The man’s face seemed to shed ten years at seeing Sicily’s youthful one, a hand going up to wipe his eyes.

“Signora—“

“Ruggero Settimo,” she began, taking his wrinkled hand in her tanned one and speaking with the gentle reverence of a wedding vow, “you gave up so much for my well-being. It meant so much at the time to know how much you believed in me. Signor Settimo…we have formed an Italy. Will you please give me a little more of your time and help us show the world a proper government? Signor Settimo, will you finally come home to me?”

Settimo wept, finally collecting himself before taking Sicily’s hand and kissing it.

“Yes, Signora.”

~~

Feliciano came home and when he closed his door he looked up in an attempt to see Simone, perched in that armchair and reading. But no, he was not there reading; he hadn’t been there for two whole years. Feliciano had been clattering about and painting and going out to the shipyards to flirt and smile for the last…he didn’t know how long at that point. Anything to stay out of this house that wasn’t built for just one person.

He sat down in front of his easel and began to sketch lightly on the canvas in pencil before he noticed that he’d received mail. There was first a notice saying that since there was just him, they were moving him to the Ducal Palace in Venice (finally, he noted; if he had to be in this house by himself for much longer he would go crazy)…and letters from Lovino and Simone. Feliciano opened the letter from Lovino first; Lovino was oddly the one to break good news over bad news. Feliciano wanted to hear good news at this point.

_Feliciano,_

_I’m hoping you’re well. I haven’t heard from you since Lombardy officially moved over to ~~Antine’s~~ Sardinia’s house. Should I stop sending you letters? _

_I’ve been a little busy._

Feliciano actually laughed. He’d heard the news; everyone in Europe had heard the news. “Busy” was quite the understatement.

_There’s a bit of a clusterfuck with the paperwork and all, but I’ll be fine. Are you okay? I’m sorry I can’t get to you sooner, Feli. I promise we will, okay?_

Feliciano opened the second letter.

_Feliciano,_

_You will not believe how damn ridiculous these people are. I hate it. The Sardinian is somehow worse than Sicily. I did not know this was possible. They’re all worse than livestock. I feel like I’m living on a hog farm when I’m in this…commune. Sicily and her husband or not-husband or I have no clue and don’t particularly care are only living here part of the time, though, so that’s nice. I’ll make this worth my while somehow._

_That all aside, when are you going to join us all? I am perhaps not selling this as well as I can sell other things. Maybe because I like the concept but not the execution quite yet. We shall see._

Feli’s mouth twisted helplessly, something bittersweet in the back of his throat.

_Oh, Simone, if you only knew. It’s not up to me._

~~

Five years is a long time; when you’ve lived two thousand of them, it can either feel like a lifetime or like the blink of an eye.

In five years, it became clear that Romano and Sicily had not been robbed of their nationhood; in fact, they seemed to grow stronger as the discord between them and Sardinia grew. In the time before the document stating that their marriage had been officiated by the church as well as the government had been found, they had been given two separate rooms in a large house somewhere in the mess of territory Antine had acquired. When Antine saw Lovino going into Serafina’s bedroom and not leaving until morning, he said nothing.

They stayed there with increasing infrequence; Lombardy had discreetly moved his things back to his small lodging in Milan and Sardinia didn’t know exactly where Romano and Sicily kept going. He was sure they were living together. He didn’t bother reporting it; when the government cleared the document, which confirmed that they still had ten more years until their vows were up for renewal, Antine sent it to Lovino and didn’t bother sending it to Serafina.

Once again, Gilbert had gone to war with Roderich. It had nothing to do with Roderich’s wife; it had everything to do with Gilbert keeping the right to raise his younger brother.

“You’re not suited for being a parent,” said Roderich, trying to be diplomatic but showing his predilections regardless.

“Are you any better? How many kids have you traumatized?”

“I’ve raised several children, unlike you. Please. You’ll just make him…”

“Make him what, Roderich?”

“A brute.”

Gilbert smiled grimly.

“He’s my brother. I’ll raise him and he’ll be better than all of us. You’ll see.”

~~

Romano woke up in a cold sweat, thrashing in a way that would wake anyone next to him. Sicily, who was a lighter sleeper than the devil, was immediately up.

He fell out of bed and onto his knees. He was babbling in an old, dead language, too wrapped up in what he’d seen to speak anything more recent. From the look on his face it was something about Feliciano. His wife was kneeling on the bed and lighting a candle to get a look at his face.

“Serafina, he—“

“It wasn’t real, Lovino. He’s safe, and you’re safe. I promise.”

This didn’t seem to convince him. She didn’t expect it to; he hadn’t heard from his brother in months.

“Nina, read me something.”

“What do you want me to read?”

“Anything, I just need someone to say things so I can think of something else.”

She put the candle on her nightstand and moved to grab a book.

“Lovino, come here.” He got back on the bed to rest his head on her chest. One of her arms looped around his shoulders and the other was holding a book aloft.

“You’re getting Tempio and you’re going to like it.” She knew this poem by heart but didn’t feel like now was the time for reciting it.

“Yes, Signora,” he singsonged before closing his eyes.

“ _Iu in una gaggia mia_

_Un cardidduzzu avìa_

_Chi cuntinuu satava_

_Senza queti, e riposu—“_

She looked down and saw that he was looking at her intently. Her eyes flicked back to the page.

_“Circannu libertà. Tu si assurtatu,_

_Cardidduzzu, e non vidi_

_La tua felicità. Tu non hai dica_

_Dabbuscarti la spisa;_

_Mangi, e bivi, e non fai nudda fatica._

_Chista stissa prigiuni,_

_Da cui cerchi a vuluni_

_Scappari, ti fa esenti tutti l’uri_

_Di crudi Cacciaturi,_

_E di l’artigghj fei,_

_Di nigghj, e di sparveri…O libertati!”_

She could feel his smiling mouth against her collarbone.

_“(Pari, chi a mi dicissi) o quantu è cara_

_La bella Libertà! Matri natura_

_Non putìa fari a nui_

_Donu chiù preziusu, o darni chiui._

_Mossu dunchi a pietà_

_Cci dugnu libertà._

_Sferra, vola cuntenti all’ariu apertu;_

_Ma lunga prigunia lu fa inespertu._

_Vurrìa in autu vulari, e chiù s’abbassa;_

_Vurrìa iri luntanu, e non s’arrassa;_

_E chiù supra di l'ali_ __  
Sustinirsi non po; casca, e si trova  
Ntra li granfi d'un gattu, ch'osservannu   
Sta sua scappata lu jia cuccìannu.   
Miseru cardidduzzu   
In vidirsi azziccati   
L'ugna a la panza, e li scagghiuni in testa,   
Grida, ma invanu: O libertà funesta!” 

She could feel how evenly he was breathing, the rise and fall matching her hand gently rubbing his back. He was asleep.

This could not continue, she mused. She wasn’t referring to reading him poetry; she was referring to his separation from his little brother. Whatever was keeping Veneziano from writing Lovino wasn’t something good. She had checked recently as to whether or not it had been five years since she had written the Prussians. It was rapidly approaching. This would mark maybe one of three total occasions where she had ever been on time for something, she thought to herself.

She vowed to herself to write a second letter to Prussia when she woke the next morning. If Antine could take Parma, Modena, and Lombardy, why couldn’t she take Venice for her husband?

~~

_Prussia,_

_It’s been five years. May I have the honor of finally meeting you to speak on the question of our unification?_

_Sicily_

\--

_Sicily,_

_I’m at [redacted] for twelve days. If you can get to me there, you can get to me anywhere. We will talk._

_Prussia_

\--

Would she tell Sardinia about this? No. _Better to ask forgiveness than permission._ This had to be done, she rationalized. She had to be the one to do it.

She told Lovino she was going to go pay a visit to someone up north, kissed him goodbye, and got on her horse. He would find the letters and say nothing to Antine either. He would throw them in the fire. She was not going to be executed for treason if they couldn’t find any evidence of premeditation.

She rode swiftly into the German encampment and not one soldier thought themselves paid well enough to try and stop her. What was a housewife on the battlefield, anyways?

~~

_The year was 1770 and Gilbert Bielschmidt, Antonio Fernandez Carriedo and Francis Bonnefoy were sitting together. Gilbert and Antonio were arguing about whether or not Spain’s Mediterranean island territories were bloodthirsty while Francis was stealing and then promptly but tastefully consuming their forgotten glasses of wine._

_“You don’t agree with me on that? Okay, fine. That’s perfectly reasonable, if not outrageously stupid. Almost every time we’re together, you’re bitching about another rebellion, another uprising, another—whatever shit they’ve been pulling.”_

_“Gilbert, they’re kids, they’ll wear out over time—“_

_“They’re older than you, aren’t they? Do you really believe what you’re saying? Here, Antonio, I’m willing to cast a wager.”_

_“I’m listening.”_

_“Your king has been talking about joining Naples and Sicily when they come of age, especially now that you’ve had them back under the Bourbon crown for a few decades. If that marriage ever happens—when those two are grown up or in the process of doing so—I’m going to give you a gun.”_

_“You want me to shoot them?”_

_“Let me finish. I’m putting a fancy bow on a gun—it will be a pretty gun, maybe an ivory-handled pistol or something, but still definitely a gun—and you’re placing it on the gift table on my behalf. I have never met the islander girl, but I will bet anything that she will run for that gun and strap it to her waist, wedding dress and all. Because she’s going to fucking use it. Your little Ganymede—“ Antonio flinched a second time, “—isn’t going to even look at that gun, let alone grab for it.”_

_“What are you wagering?”_

_“Their independence. If that happens, you have to let them go. Because if you don’t, they’ll end up killing you.”_

_Antonio exhaled through his nostrils, taking a long gulp of wine before looking back into Gilbert’s red eyes._

_“Deal.”_

_“Shake on it.”_

_Their hands clasped._

_“Anyway, Francis, sorry. What were you saying about your new territory who is so adorable that I’m certain will definitely try to murder you someday? What’s his name? Corsica?”_

~~

Gilbert Bielschmidt was a man of habit. He liked his papers and atlases neatly stacked on his desk first thing in the morning when he began work, took his breaks at exactly the hour and came back on the next, and kept his writing desk so painfully neat you would almost think he didn’t use it.

Gilbert Bielschmidt was not expecting this. Well, he _was_ , but not right at that moment.

A young, broad-shouldered and dark-skinned _thing_ , just barely a woman, burst into his tent with her eyes blazing and her lips curled. She had a face that looked stolen off of a wanted poster. The dark skin, the stance, the narrow, hungry eyes.

Gilbert was still sharpening his quill, utterly unflinching.

She feasted her eyes on the great Kingdom of Prussia. She did not know if she was impressed. He hadn’t his full uniform on and he sat leisurely in his suspenders and trousers. He was still not looking at her. She had the feeling this could either go very well or very badly.

“I’m—“

“I know who you are,” he said in French, looking up pointedly under white eyebrows before putting his quill down. “It doesn’t take a fool. You’re Sicily. I fought with your younger brother in the Holy Land. Hospitaller spoke fondly of you. But there are two Sicilies. Where is the other one?”

“My husband is currently indisposed.”

He bit back a chuckle. She looked nineteen at most. “You’re quite young to be married.”

She smiled. It made her look like she had fangs.

“You’re quite old to be single.”

He scoffs before looking her up and down. Small, and short, albeit muscular. Two pistols clipped to her hips that made her skirts ride up to show her boots. He had no clue if they were loaded. He guessed she was experienced but not in a way that would be helpful.

“I’m going to ignore that. What are you here for, Sicily?”

“I want Venice.”

“Do _you_ want Venice, or does your kingdom want Venice?”

“I want Venice, and I am sure my kingdom does as well.”

Prussia squinted and gave her a second once-over that made her hands curl into fists.

“So you’re acting of your own accord, making a deal with me as a state instead of asking for your superior, and think I’m going to go for that as a viable transaction?”

She hesitated.

“Why Venice?”

“It’s all that’s left; when Italy and Lazio are taken, the whole mainland will be unified. And…well, Venice, he’s my brother in law,” she admitted in a manner that Gilbert almost mistook for shyness. “I think two brothers should be together, no?”

“Depends on the brothers. It’s not even _your_ brother.”

“One pair of us needs to be united, I guess…Sardinia’s brother was stolen away from him by the French. My brother was kidnapped by the Englishman because he thought I wasn’t fit to raise him, which, from what I can tell, is something _you_ could relate to pretty well—“

His head cocked before he kissed his teeth, eyes narrowing further as he scrutinized what exactly was clipped to her belt.

“Sicily, what are those?”

“What are what?”

“What you have around your waist. Show me.”

“They’re guns. I would expect you to know what a gun looks like.”

That gaze from under his eyebrows and she immediately went silent before unclipping her two pistols from their holsters.

“Sicily.”

“Yes?”

“Do you know what type of guns these are?”

“The pretty one is a Queen Anne pistol and the other is a Henry 1813.”

“So you know the year for that one. Do you know anything about Queen Anne pistols? When were they discontinued?”

“Well—“

“Answer the question.”

“1805.”

“So I am holding a fifty year old pistol and a…sixty year old pistol at its absolute youngest. Now let me ask you a second question.”

Her cheeks were flaming when he leaned forward.

“Are you _fucking_ kidding me?”

“I apologize for them being out of date, but you’d be hard pressed to find a gunsmith ready to sell a woman anything and they may be old but they still _work—“_

“Where did you get them in the first place?”

“The Queen Anne was a wedding gift.”

He stopped and smiled to himself before he began to trace his thumb along the familiar, worn-out engravings on the pistol’s handle.

“Was it really?”

“It was on the gift table. I have no idea who put it there. So I took it. Lovino didn’t want it. It got taken away from me in the 1820s when I got arrested but Antonio gave it back to me when I was pardoned. It…it means a lot to me. The other was given to me by an innkeeper to defend myself. And they—“

He stopped her, putting the Queen Anne in his drawer.

“This thing is obsolete. You need something better if I’m going to be seen around you and your corps.” He fished a different pistol out of the same drawer and slipped it into her empty holster.

“This is a Remington. It’s five years old; it was a gift from a kid who didn’t know what the hell he’d made. You know how to load something like this, right?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m giving you back the Henry because you said it wasn’t yours. I’ll give you this…ancient piece of ivory and metalwork back to you at the end of the war mounted in a glass case. You helped take over the peninsula with that thing?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a miracle it didn’t blow up in your hands.”

“So…so you’re going to help us?”

“If you and your superiors show up in Königsberg in a few weeks, you will not be refused. We’re fighting the same people.”

“I…thank you, _thank you—_ “

“Now get the hell out of my tent.”

She ran off and he opened the drawer and smiled fondly at his old gun. How many decades had it been since this beauty’d been away from him? Far too long, he mused. This was one of the last ivory-handled flintlocks that Old Fritz had commissioned before he’d died; he remembered back when he’d given it up for the wager that it had been under the assumption that he would be getting it back soon. He was thankful that at least she’d clearly loved and taken care of this pistol better than anyone else could have. It was what it deserved. He put the gun back and took a deep breath.

~~

Antine was absolutely silent and it made Serafina uneasy. They’d been en route to Königsberg in a train for several hours now and Antine had said nothing.

“Antine…can you say something?”

“Nothing good will come out of my mouth.”

“This…are you still mad at me—“

“Yes.”

“Can I—“

“Yes, you can make it better. Make it better by shutting the fuck up.”

“I got you an ally. We’re going to get Venice. You’ll uphold your promise to Lovino. Or did you forget that?”

Antine looked back to her, mouth a sharp line across his face.

“You’re not in a position to ask those sorts of things of other countries. And we’re not in a position to start _another_ war.”

“Lovino—“

“It’s not about just you and Lovino anymore. You need to think about the rest of us.”

“If it’s so impossible, why did your superiors agree to it?”

Antine turned away to look out the window. After a few hours they both went to separate, private booths to change into proper royal attire.

They didn’t speak again until the carriage ride to the castle. Antine bristled in his military uniform; Serafina felt her frame straining painfully against her dress.

“Serafina, when we show up, I want you to be quiet. Speak only when spoken to. I don’t know how they’ll react to people as darkly colored as us. I can’t imagine it will be good. I want you to be safe.”

She was quiet. The carriage was pulling into the courtyard.

“Serafina?”

“Yes, Antine. If they speak to you in French, am I allowed to translate for you?”

“Yes.”

“If they speak in German to me—“

“They won’t,” he responded as the carriage door opened. She had to keep from staring; the clock tower alone was magnificent. Her eyes redirected to see Prussia off in the distance, standing at attention in the doorway. Antine offered her a gloved hand and she came out, trying all she could to not wrinkle her skirts.

Gilbert casually adjusted his gloves to pretend he wasn’t staring at the two nations who were getting out of the carriage. He got his first glimpse of Sardinia since the Treaty; was he wearing that general officer’s uniform or was the uniform wearing the Sardinian? It was looking more the latter.

Sicily finally came into view, a storm with flowers in her hair and winds of rosy taffeta. Gilbert looked down at the small badger-hound at his heel.

“What do you think, Herr Kleiner?”

The dachshund gave a soft yip before circling at his master’s feet.

Gilbert nodded curtly at Antine before extending a hand to shake. Antine opened his mouth.

“ _Gruß Gott—“_

“Holy _shit_.”

“Wh—“

“No one told me you spoke like an _Austrian._ Do you only speak dialect? I mean, you can understand me and you can write it, but do you actually _speak_ High German?”

Antine stiffened.

“My High German is higher than the Matterhorn, sir.”

Gilbert actually laughed and Antine relaxed. Serafina was quiet, only listening to the two men speaking German and hoping that they were saying good things.

“Your accent’s pretty Austrian too. Be careful. Do you speak French?”

“No.”

“I’m both impressed and concerned. I suggest staying quiet unless you’re talking to me until you can adjust your speech patterns. Let Sicily speak in French in the meantime.”

Antine was not looking at Sicily, whose face was alight with a smug expression that he knew would make his blood boil.

“May I speak, then?” she asked innocently in Sardinian.

“Yes, you may.”

She walked between Gilbert and Antine but did not take her eyes off of the Prussian. His little dog struggled to keep up and he scooped him up into his arms, tucking him under his arm like a loaf of bread. His skin stood out against the deep blue of his dress coat, walking shoulders-forward into the ballroom with the saber at his hip glistening. He noticed she was looking at him and grinned, showing slightly yellowed teeth.

“Nothing to be worried about, _muttchen._ ”

Aside from the absolute mortification he felt at accidentally using an Austrian expression to a Prussian, everything went very well. Gilbert and Antine were sat next to each other. Antine was speaking to him and trying very hard to not sound Austrian.

Gilbert thought the Sardinian was acting natural and perfectly fine up until someone handed out three shot glasses and poured in some clear liquid.

“Now, Sardinia,” began to advise Gilbert as the darker-skinned man reached for one, “that’s pretty strong stuff—“

Sardinia responded by downing the shot neater than anything Gilbert had ever seen and leaving Gilbert at a loss for words. Gilbert was still questioning whether or not that had actually just happened when Sardinia asked him something and he had to respond without stammering. Sardinia threw back the second shot and Gilbert felt almost nauseous as he took his first.

_Free alcohol, free food, it almost makes it worth wearing this uniform—_

Antine heard a whine at his feet and saw Gilbert’s badger-hound sitting regally on his hindquarters with his short legs neatly folded in a begging position. His round, wet brown eyes were directed at Antine’s face while he licked his chops.

“I—“

“Herr Kleiner, don’t ask him. Go ask Wilhelm. He’s on thirds.” Gilbert still gave the dog a piece of pheasant before it scurried off.

“So why don’t you speak French?”

“Typically don’t learn the language of someone I can beat in a fight. Twice.”

Gilbert snorted into his drink.

“I heard about that. You ought to tell some of the people here those stories before the French dignitaries get here.”

“Kicking out and/or resisting the French is a time-honored tradition amongst us islands.”

“Do your people have songs about it or anything?”

“Not really. All I have, for one, are vivid memories of Francis Bonnefoy’s backside as he ran for cover. Sicily might have something like that, though. She stabbed him.” Both of them turned to look over to where Sicily had arranged herself. She’d been sat amongst the lower officers and was in a heated debate with one of them, furiously sketching something out on a dinner napkin.

“She’s feisty.”

“You could say that,” sighed Antine as he straightened his cape. “I apologize if she was…forward with you when she approached you.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for; I owe her a debt.”

_Oh._

This, _this_ was exactly what Antine’d been afraid of. Another situation where Sicily stole the spotlight, where everyone was talking about and fixated on Sicily, Sicily, _Sicily_ and not him, the one who had—

“I made a wager with someone a long time ago. It wasn’t her. No blood oath between us or anything.”

“What wager?”

Gilbert tsked. “Not worth getting into.”

“I mean, do you get anything out of this other than a sense of superiority?”

Gilbert laughed again and Antine’s stomach tightened.

“Call it naïveté; I’m just a sucker for a happy family reunion.”

~~

There comes a point in every official gathering where everyone deserts the main hall and tucks themselves into corners of the building, out in the courtyard, and muttering about both conspiracies and not-so-conspiracies in the shadows.

Antine had found the one room with a piano. He’d shed his cape and dropped it on an empty chair before advancing and pulling out the bench. He cracked his knuckles and his back before looking up at the sheet music and beginning to play whatever was in front of him. _Mephisto Waltz,_ said the sheet.

He actually enjoyed this piece; he liked the nudging, crawling way Liszt had written it that made the music feel more alive, more vibrant than something to be passively listened to. He remembered Roderich had once said that a good, truly talented pianist played _with_ the piano and not _on_ or _at_ the piano. This was probably what he had meant.

He heard the _thunk_ of the door opening behind him and he turned to see Gilbert, halting immediately. Gilbert’s eyes widened before he turned back out on his heels.

“No, keep going, I’ll be right back.”

Antine continued to play, thumbs going somewhat numb after playing the entire piece (twelve minutes, he would eventually realize) and hearing Gilbert return. He looked back to see that Gilbert was holding a flute.

“You know how to use that, or is it just for plumage?”

Gilbert tilted his chin back.

“Can you play Ave Maria?”

“Of course. Schubert version, yes?”

“Is there another version?”

Easy enough to play on the piano, but Antine had never heard someone play a flute accompaniment. He’d assumed it was more for vocals.

He started, leaning his way gently across the keys, and nearly stopped when he heard Gilbert begin to play. His throat thrummed, wanting desperately to begin singing, but kept quiet. He almost felt apologetic when the song finally drew to a close.

“I’m surprised you would know such a Catholic song off the top of your head.”

“I am _full_ of surprises, Sardinia. And if we’re going to be working together over however long this war lasts, it’s important to get that bit cleared out of the way.”

He dropped to sit on the piano bench, thigh touching Antine’s nonchalantly. Antine turned to look into Gilbert’s face to get some kind of idea of what all was going through his head; all he got was the strong scent of cannon smoke and dried blood off of Gilbert’s skin. Antine realized he was sweating and wished his black wool dress uniform were a little bit more forgiving.

“No secrets amongst allies. You’ll have to trust me. Are you going to trust me, Sardinia?”

Antine grinned the way he was famous for: bitterly, and out of sorts with the rest of his face.

“We’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: The poem is by Domenico Tempio, a Sicilian poet who got slandered immensely for being subversive.   
> The English translation of "Liberty" is below: 
> 
> In a cage of mine  
> I had a little goldfinch  
> That continually darted  
> Without ceasing, and resting  
> Seeking freedom. You are fortunate,  
> Little goldfinch, and you don't see  
> Your happy condition. You don't have need  
> To earn your way;  
> You eat, and drink, and do no work.  
> This same prison,  
> From which you try hard   
> To escape, keeps you safe at all hours,  
> From cruel hunters,  
> And from wild beasts  
> From the kite, and the hawk.... Oh freedom!   
> (It seems, you would say to me) Oh how lovely  
> That beautiful freedom! Mother nature  
> Could not have made  
> A more precious gift, or given us more.  
> Moved therfore to pity  
> I give you freedom.  
> Free, he flies happily in the open air;  
> But the long imprisonment made him careless.  
> He wanted to fly higher, and descended more;  
> He wanted to go far, and could not;  
> And higher his wings   
> Could not support him  
> In the grasp of a cat, upon observing  
> His escape went in pursuit.  
> The poor little goldfinch  
> Seeing himself attacked  
> Claws at the belly, and teeth at rhe head,  
> He screamed, but in vain: Oh deadly freedom!
> 
>  
> 
> Whew.  
> So as you all can see now, this piece is rapidly coming to an end. I am writing 1k a day for NaNoWriMo, meaning that this piece will more likely than not be finished before the month is out. 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading this, all of you! I did the math and it's about seven or eight people who have been reading this consistently: thanks. You're great. Why are you here? I love you. 
> 
> If any of you want to see any other Italy-specific kinds of fic, let me know. My specialty is the islands (hence my askblog), but I do know a good amount about everywhere else too. I've been considering doing WWI/WWII and perhaps something with the Renaissance/the Great Schism. We'll see. 
> 
> Feedback would be greatly appreciated!  
> Love you.


	18. Chapter 18

Antine had to take a piss.

He and Gilbert had been riding to a meeting point with Francis and the other commanders for the past few hours; Serafina had gone back down to Italy to regroup the others and get everything ready. He knew the ache in the center of his pelvis. It didn’t take a college education to know that the ache was his bladder crying for help.

“Prussia?” He still didn’t feel comfortable using Gilbert’s human name in casual speech.

“Sardinia?” Antine wasn’t even sure that Gilbert _knew_ his actual name.

“Can we stop for a few minutes? I need to pi—“

Gilbert halted his horse almost immediately, sighing in relief.

“My back’s killing me,” Gilbert admitted before he slipped down from his mount.

“Oh, please, you’re far too young to be getting back pains. Talk when you’re at least seven hundred and fifty.”

Gilbert shook his head as Antine got off and handed Gilbert his horse’s reins.

“Nah, it’s not that, I just get muscle spasms whenever I’m at war.” Gilbert stretched and grimaced, noticing that Antine was going into the woods rather than just relieving himself at the corner of the forest.

“Going for a late evening stroll?”

“Can’t stand and go,” replied the Sardinian before he finally receded out of view.

“ _What?_ ”

Gilbert had maybe five minutes to ponder on that until Sardinia came back out of the thicket of trees.

“Did something happen to you?”

“What?”

“War injury? Jealous monarch? Torture?”

“ _What_?”

“Who castrated you? Or were you even castrated at all?”

“I wasn’t castrated. It’s kind of a long story,” Antine wasn’t as uncomfortable divulging this to the younger man as he thought he would be. Maybe some secrets just needed to marinate for over two and a half thousand years before you told them.

“We have plenty of time if you want to tell me, but you don’t have to.”

“How far are we from stopping?

“I have a cabin something like two more hours’ ride from here. We’ll stop there for the night, review some basic things, and meet with Francis tomorrow morning.”

“That I can do.”

They’d been back on their horses for two minutes, riding abreast, when Gilbert broached the subject again. Sardinia breathed in deeply through his nose and adjusted his glasses.

“So you know I have three brothers: Corsica, who is my twin, then Portugal, then Spain. Portugal and Spain are my half brothers. All four of us have the same mother. Andria was the heir to my mother’s fortune because he’s the eldest son.”

“So he was born a few minutes before you?”

“That’s not what I mean; what I mean is that I was born and when they looked at me they said I was a girl. I wasn’t designated Phoenicia’s firstborn son and heir due to timing; I’m not her legal heir because I wasn’t born male.”

Gilbert’s eyebrows lowered and Antine continued, hiccupping out information that he’d told exactly no one before. He literally couldn’t help it and he didn’t know yet if he was going to regret how much he was giving the Prussian, especially when he didn’t know if he would somehow tell other people.

“I didn’t feel that way, though. I didn’t feel like a girl, I mean. When my brother and I were kidnapped by slavers I told them I was a boy, bit a couple fingers off when they tried to undress me, and the rest…well, the rest is history, so to speak.”

“I knew someone who had something very similar happen to them. It’s not uncommon. But if you were born differently, how is your voice like that?”

The Sardinian shrugged.

“Do you want the fluffy answer or do you want to know what I think actually happened?”

“What’s the fluffy answer?”

“I prayed every night growing up that I wouldn’t get a feminine body. Every night, I prayed to both my mother’s gods and Rome’s gods and finally to the Christian God for a manly shape and a beard. Prayer was the answer.”

“I want the real answer.”

Sardinia laughed.

“The prayer wasn’t a lie. I did actually pray every night. But when I was younger I went through a lot of really, _really_ serious famine. Have you ever been hungry, Prussia?”

“I’ve been through my share of famine.”

“Then you know how bottomless it feels to be that hungry and have no way to appease it. I ate grass. I ate leaves. I ate dirt. I can’t tell you how often I felt cold where it wasn’t because of the outside temperature but because I had no layer of fat. And I think that did something to me where it flicked a switch, pushed a button. I have no clue why, but I got tall. I didn’t grow breasts and my voice deepened and I started growing hair on my chin. I went through the same process as other men did, but some things you can’t change. The apparatus below is one of them.”

“Do your brothers know?”

“Andria knows, Romano as well. I have no idea of Adão and Antonio do. I don’t talk about it for obvious reasons; can you imagine them finding me out during the Inquisition? There would have been an uproar. I would have either been burnt ”

“So you’ve kept completely quiet about it all these years?”

“I mean…I mean, yeah, I did. There’s no reason for me to tell them, you know? It’s none of their business and they’d just make it more awkward than it has to be. Plus I don’t like to talk about it and I don’t feel like I should have to.” He shifted in his saddle. “You’re not going to make this awkward, are you?”

Gilbert shook his head while the corner of his mouth curled into a bit of a grin.

“No. Anyone who beats the French that casually out of his territory is a real man in my book. So Andria, Adão and Antonio: what’s your name, Sardinia? Anardo? Adolfo? Alvaro?”

“I’m Antine Pecora.”

“Antine? So like Antonio? How did you both get different spellings of Anton—“

“No, you misunderstand; Antonio’s full name is Antonio. My name is Antine, but Antine comes from _Constantine_.”

“Fancy. Very exotic sounding.”

“Almost as fancy and exotic as _Gilbert_.”

~~

Antine had left the negotiation room and Francis and Gilbert were alone.

“You make sure he doesn’t stiff his end of the bargain. Took me two years to get Savoy and Nice out of him.”

“I plan to do whatever I see fit.”

“I know you do.”

When Francis and his entourage rode off, both Antine and Gil were standing side by side.

“So we’re doing this?”

“Yeah. But just a warning…” Gil turned Antine to look into his eyes (or attempt to), hands firmly on his shoulders. “It will not be easy.”

Antine nodded.

“I don’t want it to be.”

“Do you trust me?”

“I slept in your weird hell cabin, didn’t I? You could have murdered me by now, but you didn’t. That’s enough for me.”

~~

Gilbert was in a room with Antine again. He was somewhere in Italy and they were waiting for the other three Italian nations to file in.

“Translate for me, yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

The new Lombardy was the first to come in. Gilbert was struck at how… _German_ he looked, with his white-blond hair barely standing out against the smooth, uninterrupted whiteness of his skin. He had cold black eyes that Gilbert knew from his occasional dealings with his late father.

“His name is _Simone_ ,” whispered Antine. “Simone Capra. He will be doing most of our artillery and cavalry work, I believe. As will I, unless we need more people in the front.”

“Is he—“

The second person came in. This had to be the other Sicily, Gilbert realized; if his wife’s face was one found off of a wanted poster, Romano looked like the kind of face you would find on the side of a coin. He walked with his hands behind his back with a sullen sort of righteousness that Antine seemed to almost feed back to him, the two silently looping looks between each other in a Mobius strip of irritated validation.

Sicily was the last to arrive.

“Late!” called Gilbert in guttural French.

“Was busy!” she called back, dropping herself into the chair next to her husband. Antine finally stood up to lean over a few maps.

“Now that everyone’s here, let’s begin. We’ve got Prussia here and he, uh, is going to help us recover Venice.”

“We don’t have the funds for this,” responded the Lombard in Tuscan, shuffling through the maps. “Mobilizing troops would be too costly.”

“Well we’re doing it anyway.”

Gilbert was staring up at the ceiling, not speaking their language and trying to parse out what all was transpiring with his limited knowledge of Spanish and his much more intimate knowledge of French.

“That’s completely illogical; national sentiments aside, it’s logistically—“

“Maybe shut up?”

Gilbert judged by the sharpness of Sicily’s tone and Simone’s reaction that she’d said something insulting. He could see Antine was sweating.

“Maybe _you_ shut up?”

“Original! But no, I won’t. The Venetians are rebelling against the Austrians and now is the _time._ If we’re quick about it, we get Venice and we get out and—“

“And waste how much of our treasury in the process? Veneto is a swamp. We need farmland, or factory land, or…hell, anything worth our time.”

“Veneto _is_ worth our time. Do you have eyes?! Venice is perhaps one of the wealthiest regions of the peninsula. If we take Veneto then we take the Venetian treasury and add it—“

“Like how you’re not adding yours?”

“I’ve added plenty of mine—“

“Oh, please, I know you’ve cached things away, you filthy little—“

“That’s easy for you to judge me over when you’re so rich—“

Gilbert jumped up to slam his hands on the table and yell something in German. Three Italians jumped and fell silent; Sardinia’s face didn’t budge. Why? Because he knew that the only thing Gilbert had shouted was “asparagus is the king’s vegetable.”

“There is no point in meeting if none of you want to cooperate,” he hissed in French, baring yellowed canine teeth. “All you’re doing is wasting time. And that time could be used to locate the Human Nation of Veneto, but instead you want to argue! We cool off today, we do drills tomorrow. We speak of strategy later. I want all of you to think deeply and seriously about what all you want and how you will get it. Clear?”

Sicily was muttering the translation to Lovino and Simone looked like he would rather be anywhere else.

“Clear,” said the other three softly.

“Adjourned.”

Sicily immediately got up from her chair to leave the room.

“Where does she think _she’s_ going? This is all her fault, anyway—“

“There are some new recruits for the army,” responded Lovino in halting Tuscan before getting up to follow her. Gilbert found himself walking with Lovino. Perhaps it was the language barrier, but he felt like he needed to know more.

“No French?”

Lovino gave him a glare that made the pit of his stomach ice over.

“No.”

“I assume also no German?”

“No.”

Gilbert hesitated for a moment before trying his third language.

“Ah….do you still speak Latin?”

Lovino’s mouth contorted into a grin, his nose scrunching slightly.

“I’m surprised yours is still so good.”

“What all is your lady trying to accomplish with the recruits?” he asked as they followed into the room she’d just entered.

“Rise some spirits.”

“Will you translate?”

“Yes.”

~~

Luigi La Rosa did not know much in life; he enlisted in the volunteer corps because his friends had done so and he believed it’s what his father would have wanted. This was his first time leaving his small village outside of Palermo.

“There are nations here,” whispered Giancarlo. “I saw Naples and another one outside. He’s looking way better than the last time we saw him.”

“Is Sicily here?” He’d never met her—him? He felt like Sicily would be a woman. He knew someone had told him at one point but he forgot at the moment; his father had met Sicily and spoke of bright, amber eyes and a snarling face.

They were all standing in a gaggle in the mess room while waiting to mobilize; they’d been doing drills for two weeks and now they were supposed to go meet the Sardinians at the front. Luigi was both excited and frightened.

A young woman cut through into the center of the room and people seemed to almost instinctually give her a wide berth, all recognizing an ancient sort of cold falling over their shoulders at her presence. Luigi felt his lungs stall in his chest. Somehow he just knew. _This is Sicily. This is my motherland._

“I have lived under foreign control my entire life.”

The crowd hushed. Luigi was transfixed. Luigi was one of many who didn’t notice a tall, washed-out looking man leaning against the wall, shaking his head quietly as a shorter Neapolitan translated in his ear.

“I am old; I was enslaved after the fall of Carthage. My father was murdered fighting the embodiment of Rome in the Coliseum. He had made a deal with his captors: if Rome won and killed him, the Romans could have us. If he won and killed Rome…he would not be restored to his former glory, but would be allowed to live in peace along with his family. This you know from your history books. He lost, as you also know, and my cousins, my younger brother and I were put up for sale like chickens. I have learned intimately what it means to be at the mercy of men who see you as less than human.”

The men began to murmur.

“I have been under foreign rule ever since. Foreigners told me how I must dress, how I must walk, how I must speak. They told me I was ugly, wrong, that my land was not mine to command. They kept me away from my own island and I was sold often; I was spending winters with my fate in Schönbrunn and summers at the mercy of kings in Versailles. I am _tired,_ gentlemen, of old, foreign men telling me who I am and who I am _not._ Lily-skinned fat old men on faraway thrones saying what it means to be Italian, what it means to be Sicilian! I _refuse_ to let a foreign king tell anyone who they are! I _refuse_ to let them take anyone’s rights away! I _refuse_ to let others stay under the boot of despotism when I know we are capable of liberating them! I _refuse_ ; I know Venice does not recognize the Austrian king! They should not have to!”

Luigi found himself shouting “YES!” with the rest of his company-men. The murmuring was replaced by the fervent repetition of slogans, both old and new in the face of their history.

“My father, when I was young…he said to me that I must not be prey. We, we Sicilians, we are not prey. We are not livestock to be bought and sold. We are diverse, strong, unique…incredible. And at every turn, we Sicilians – myself included – have stood for our values. We know _who we are_. We are the reason everyone else decided to fight in 1848; we took up the mantle. We fought the Spanish till the bitter end. Are we ready, then, to fight to unite us as a whole? Are we ready to send the Austrians to hell just like how we sent the Spanish?”

Cheering.

“Over forty years ago I became one of the first Carbonari. I was arrested and jailed for high treason against the Spanish crown. I was to be publicly executed. I was saved in the end, but I was ready to die for a unified Italy. I was ready to die for you all.”

Luigi would never forget how bright her eyes glowed, golden in the dim light of the sun filtering through the dirty windows.

“Are you all ready to die for me?”

 _Yes,_ gasped out the volunteers. _Yes._

In the cheering, in the clapping and foot-stomping chaos, Luigi’s eyes met hers. They flared open and she came towards him and grabbed him by both hands. They were firm and warm and his heart was stammering away—

“I know your eyes. I knew your father. He saved me. I have something for you.”

She pulled a gun out of one of her holsters. He… _this was the pistol his father gave Sicily to escape the Spanish._

“Please send him my regards, if he is still alive. If not…I think he would want you to have this. You’ll know what to do with it when the time comes, eh? It’s in your blood.”

~~

Antine couldn’t do push-ups and he was dirty and Gilbert was holding a riding crop and he’d had a dream similar to this but it had been a lot sexier. Serafina had been sent to lead a group on a run and Lovino had been doing penalty pull-ups on a tree for the past twenty or so minutes.

“You skinny son of a bitch, give me ten more!”

“For fuck’s sake—“

“Your form was off, another fifteen!”

Serafina finally came back, sweating, her hair tied back messily.

“Sir, three people have already collapsed, they haven’t been eating enough.”

Gilbert laughed.

“Is that what it is? Malnutrition? Or maybe you’re all fat, lazy pigs that aren’t used to working off your dinners.”

Lovino’s arms gave out. He finally dropped from the tree and hit his head on a root, causing Serafina to break ranks to try and reach him.

“Sicily, I’m not done talking to you.”

“ _Fuck_ you—“

The tip of Gilbert’s boot tucked under her ankle, causing her to twist and fall to her knees.

“Did you just say what I think you just said to your commanding officer?”

“He’s _hurt,_ Prussia—“

“You’re still talking back?”

“I don’t know, are you still being a _cunt_?”

“Fifty pushups.”

“Can I—“

“Sixty.”

“He’s bleeding—“

“Seventy.”

She tried to get up again and he nudged her back to sitting.

“Ninety.”

“Is this what you would do on the battlefield?”

“Two hundred.”

She turned her head to get a better look at her husband, who had managed to collect himself enough to wipe the blood out of the cut on his forehead.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, _muttchen._ Three hundred.”

“Prussia, you’re just being senselessly—“

“Three hundred and fifty! I can do this all day, missy. You’re only making it harder for yourself.

“This is—“

“Four hundred! And in the time we’ve spent having this stupid argument, you could have done the fifty pushups and gone to help out your hubby dear over there, but instead you wanted to have the last word. It’s always up to you.”

Her face was burning red when she finally moved to start the first of four hundred pushups. Antine had gone to shoot at some targets carved into trees and Lovino was sitting on a rock pretending to not look dizzy.

“Why the hell are you wearing civilian clothes?”

“You…you wanna find a uniform for a girl my size, Prussia? They don’t exist…” she hissed.

“Yes they do. They probably just don’t have frills like what you’d like.”

Gilbert could see every insult she wanted to say glazing over her eyes. It was enough to make him break character for maybe three seconds.

“You know how fucking angry you feel right now? Use that for getting Veneto back.”

She finally collapsed at pushup number three hundred and ninety-seven.

“Do it over.”

She groaned and Gilbert laughed at her.

“Do you Germans believe in haggling?”

Gilbert shook his head.

“I don’t barter with women who call soldiers cunts.”

She started back at square one and Gil sat down to watch her. By the time she’d finished, her husband’s head injury had subsided and she was ready to tear her own arms off and eat them.

He allowed her to sit up and rest against a tree as her husband finally started to run with another group of soldiers.

“Look at him go,” she breathed, and Gilbert didn’t know if her French was directed to him or if it was to himself. “He runs like a baby duck.”

He did, Gilbert realized; his neck and back stretched out and he placed his feet exactly like a duck. The comedy of his ungainly sort of grace was only amplified by the very serious look on his face.

Drills finally finished and Gilbert watched the Italians mingle; he didn’t speak enough Italian or dialect to know what they were saying, but he knew enough to know that they were different when they spoke their mother tongues. Romano—his name was Lovino, Gilbert had been told—had a much softer way about him speaking Sicily’s language as opposed to Antine’s. Antine seemed to only speak his native tongue with his own soldiers, with Lovino, and under his breath. Lovino seemed to never speak the Neapolitan Antonio had told Gilbert so much about; electing to speak Sardinian and Sicilian with the respective nations and using Tuscan and some… _corrupted_ version of Tuscan in other affairs. Sicily (he did not dare ask for her human name yet) seemed offended if you spoke to her in anything but Sicilian. Simone disregarded all of this politics and simply talked to people in what Gilbert recognized to be Tuscan. Gilbert admired Simone for what Gilbert perceived as directness, but that was maybe the only trait he’d shown other than flat-out rudeness.

The evening flattened out into a fatigue that Gilbert recognized but also a gentleness he was unfamiliar with; Sicily had gone to help with the cooking and she and her husband both danced and chattered at each other over giant pots and cans, Lovino with a hand that always seemed to skirt around her waist and Sicily’s gaze flicking to the cut on Lovino’s forehead that was still healing nicely.

Gilbert had taken his small piece of bread to casually dip into whatever was cooking and Sicily had nearly broken his hand with a wooden spoon, trilling in her native tongue and sending Gilbert as far away from the fire as possible. Gilbert found himself sitting next to Antine, who had replaced his nightly food ration with a flask of God knew what and Gilbert found himself wondering again if the Sardinian was real or if he was some sort of hallucination of his bad impulses, like some sort of imaginary friend gone horribly wrong.

“Don’t fuck with her in the kitchen.”

“Noted.”

Gilbert sat intently gnawing on his bread crust in a manner that was rather beneath his rank and Antine was clearly stifling laughter, snorting into his flask.

The company and the nations alike relaxed, stretched muscles, and hissed at the feeling of sore spots rubbing against hard edges. One Sicilian man (as they tended to do), started singing a work song. The man next to him started humming along. And then another. And another.

Gilbert had never seen anything like it.

A whole company of Sicilians knew this song. Sicily looked up when one of the men beckoned for her, and more and more seemed to be asking her something. What were they asking?

She finally came to the center of the clearing and began to move. _Oh._

Her feet were bare and she made flouncing movements with her skirts as she danced, laughing as the men, _her_ men, began to clap and sing faster. She sang along and lifted an arm over her head, crooking a finger for Lovino to join her. A few Neapolitan men began to hoot and Lovino finally obliged. Sicilians were laughing, switching from the familiar beat of the work song to what Gilbert judged (based on the tempo) was some sort of love ballad as Lovino took her by the hands. Other men had gotten up to grab a partner by the waist and join in.

Sicily gave Lovino a kiss before she twirled off, falling into the arms of the man Gilbert recognized from earlier: this was the one she’d given the pistol to. He looked as shocked as he was smitten. She looked like she was flirting a bit, but Gilbert figured he was reading too much into it.

“Why don’t you do something more _Carthaginian?!_ ” shouted someone in Lombard-accented Tuscan. Everyone stopped. Antine took a gulp from his flask before letting out a sharp sort of trill and whistling something out that made Gilbert remember his time in the Holy Land. Sicily began to wind and twist her legs and hips in a way that made Gilbert feel as though he were witnessing something much, _much_ older than he was. Antine kept up with the strange whistling and started to pat out a rhythm absentmindedly in the dirt.

Gilbert hadn’t realized that Sicily was moving towards him until her foot pressed into his forehead, tipping his head back so he had to look into his eyes. Her chin tilted and her eyebrow raised. The impulse he had was to grab the ankle being presented to him and kiss it. Before he could debate or act on that impulse, she was gone again.

Antine took another long drink from his flask.

~~

_Antine,_

_I need to go back to the Austrian front. I’m sure you don’t need to be babysat. Please go on like we planned. I think you will be fine, for what it’s worth. You’ve trained more than enough, all of you. Just trust your gut._

_G. F. B._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just...a little something. 
> 
> I apologize if this chapter is a little personal. 
> 
> I wrote this entire chapter because I want to overthrow my government.   
> I didn't want to write today because I was so upset with election results. I live in France; it is 1 AM here and when I woke up it was to the fact that Hillary was about to concede the election.   
> I am writing right now because I think it would make both of them angry that a bisexual transgender disabled man is writing. That we are creating art.   
> Never stop. Live to see the day where you see his obituary is in the paper. Live to see the day you can go out on your back porch and set it on fire.   
> Live, damn you all.


	19. Chapter 19

This job. This _fucking_ job. Do you know how tiring it is? No, you don’t; at Gilbert’s age, fatigue settles on your bones like soot settles on your coat. You can shake it off for a bit, but the black streaks and spots will always taint the wool.

He knew there were those who were much older than him; Arthur had spoken of China, who was nearing four thousand years old. He knew his colleagues like Sardinia and Sicily were just a bit younger, somewhere at three thousand years old.

He didn’t give a fuck. He just wanted a cigar and a nap.

He still wanted a cigar and a nap when he felt the tug on his sleeve and turned to see his little brother.

“Ludwig, you’re supposed to be in bed.”

“You’re going away again, aren’t you?”

Gilbert knelt down to look in Ludwig’s eyes.

“I have to go for just a bit. I’ll be back.”

Ludwig looked too serious. Gilbert licked the tip of his finger and wiped off some dirt from Ludwig’s cheek, surprised that it had been missed in the first place. Ludwig was so _good._ He hoped it would stay that way.

“Stay,” said Gilbert’s younger brother with a firmness that sounded far beyond his physical age. Gilbert shook his head.

“You have Herr Kleiner. You have Aster and Berlitz and Blackie. You will be fine on your own for a few more days.”

He kissed the top of Ludwig’s head.

“I’m doing this so we can stay together. You want to stay with me, right?”

Ludwig nodded.

“That can’t happen unless I make sure Roderich can’t come and take you away. And I can’t do that from here.”

“You might get hurt.”

Gilbert grinned and gave his younger brother’s shoulder a squeeze.

“Ludwig, to exist is to get hurt. To survive is to heal. To live is to get back up and continue.”

~~

Sardinia, Sicily, Lombardy and Romano stood around a map in a manner akin to witches around a boiling cauldron.

“We go in calmly and in formation.”

“That’s what they’re _expecting._ We need something quick and decisive.”

“Prussia said—“

“Who gives a damn? He’s never fought on terrain like this.”

“I’m inclined to believe a man who’s made warfare his trade over someone who chose pottery, orange farming and fishing, _Sicily._ ”

“And exorcism!” piped up Lombardy. “We can’t forget the exorcisms. Or the poverty. Or the superstition, but I suppose that’s wrapped up in the exorcisms too—“

Serafina’s cheeks were burning hot and she could practically feel Romano’s thought process vacillating between wanting to console her and wanting to not irritate Lombardy further.

“I’m just saying that I don’t think he’s fought on swamplands like this before. If we use cannons and such it might slow us down. We already have the numbers on them. If we use everything correctly—“

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Lovino, are you going to be a part of the main troops this time?”

“Do…do I have a choice? It doesn’t matter. I’m coming with you all for this and I’ll see if I can handle it.”

Lombardy snorted before pushing some bone-white hair behind his ear. He was getting crow’s feet at the corner of his left eye from smirking too much.

“Hope you can keep up, piggy.”

“Who leads the attack and who’s diverting?”

“It’s up to you, Sicily. What do you think is best?”

“Wanna lead, Sicily? I dare you. You’ll make a mess of it, just like everything else.”

“Eat shit, Simone.”

~~

Custoza.

She’d looked behind her to see that Antine had utterly ignored any and all of the advice she’d given. They had cannons, they had heavy equipment. Give the right man a rifle and a coffee and he could take over the entire world, but what the hell would _she_ know?

She’d do her best, though. She had nothing that she needed but maybe if she acted quickly—

~~

Oh, Custoza.

Antine hadn’t calculated in just how stupid his cousin could be on a dare.

He’d somehow completely forgotten telling her it was her choice as to whether he would divert or lead. He’d been operating under the assumption he was leading.

He’d seen Serafina’s horse blast forward in a charge perhaps a little too late.

“We’ll get Venice by morning!” Serafina called back to him, already in a drop-dead sprint while he stood there in a state of utter perplexion.

“Fuck?” He snapped out of it and spurred his horse into a tentative trot. “ _Fuck!”_

~~

Simone had the binoculars locked on the main field and Lovino was holding the rifle. Lovino was sweating and Simone started hissing through his teeth.

“Oh, _goodness._ Tell me, Lovino, is this a fox hunt?”

“No?”

“Then maybe you and your cousin ought to keep your _bitch_ on a leash,” Simone looked back at the artillery corps. “Let’s move.”

~~

Serafina had been giving the orders until she’d been clotheslined by an Austrian soldier’s rifle, throwing her off her horse and knocking her unconscious in the process. She came to looking into a pair of hazel eyes and a sharp pain in her midsection. He was rinsing out a towel that was pinked with what she assumed was her own blood.

“Good, you’re awake.”

“How long was I out?”

“Long enough for me to cradle you dramatically in my arms while we rode off on a white horse. Good thing you don’t seem to have brain damage. Must have been your body recovering from shock.”

“Did we win?”

“You fell on a bayonet and you want to ask me if we won?”

“Pino, _did we win_?”

“We had the numerical advantage, like you said, but that got thrown to the wolves when someone decided to charge and make herself the Sicilian ‘Joan of Arc’.”

She winced at his French pronunciation of the famous martyr’s name.

“Antine said I could. He said it was up to me—“

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Antine was right. We need to beat the Austrians at their own game. Guerrilla warfare and fast strikes like that haven’t _worked_ in the past. Street fighting didn’t work in…it didn’t work in Rome. It just got a lot of people senselessly killed. Which is what happened today, too.”

“Did we win, Pino?”

Her skin tried to recoil from the cold touch of the washcloth, wiping the space where she’d been impaled. One couldn’t even tell she’d been run through at this point; they just looked like two separate, albeit deep, wounds in her abdomen that puckered and ached at the edges.

“Absolutely not.”

~~

Gilbert had been cleaning his gun absentmindedly while thinking about what all Roderich was trying to accomplish when he got the news. Ah. _That_ was what he could accomplish.

“They had the numerical advantage. They had everything going for them. From what I hear one of the nations bolted forward and the others had to scramble. It was a bloodbath.”

Gilbert scratched the stubble on his chin.

“Do you know which one bolted?”

The messenger shook his head.

“Your guess is probably better than mine, sir.”

Gilbert adjusted his coat and began reassembling his rifle.

“I will go see them myself.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me. A mutinous army is the last thing we need. Meanwhile, I want you to start peace talks with the Austrians. See if you can contact the French to mediate, in case we can get this…Italy question squared away too.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll be back.”

~~

Serafina was shivering on a medical cot when Lovino came in with Antine.

“By morning, you said?”

She winced and Antine coughed out a bitter sort of laugh.

“I just got word from a little bird that the Prussians are negotiating with the Austrians for peace! And because we’ve done so horribly, Austria has been asked to give us Venice as a _gift_ and not as something _won._ You want to tell me if your ego was worth humiliating the rest of us, Nina?”

“Is there anything I can do to make this better?”

“You keep asking that and then not doing anything about it. Make this the exception: I want you to make it better—“ he grabbed her by the face, clutching at her jaw with one pinching hand, “by _doing what I say and_ _do._ No exceptions. No artistic license. Just shut the fuck up and listen.”

She nodded and he let her go, letting her fall back onto the cot with a slight bounce as he stormed out of the medical tent.

Antine was not wearing a coat, being one of the few people who was already accustomed to colder climates amongst his allies. Although he still walked with a curved, slouched back, there was no uncomfortable bow to his legs anymore. The maladroit way he carried himself on lower ground and on beaches melted away on this terrain into a surefootedness that people did not expect from him.

Muscle memory more than actual desire drove his hand to the flask on his hip, positioned higher up than his saber. He had to figure out a way to win at least _one_ engagement before he was publicly humiliated on an international scale. He needed just one thing on his side.

He needed to somehow speak to Feliciano. Get a letter through to him, anything. Simone had told him that he was being kept at the Ducal Palace in Venice like some sort of high-class prisoner, but Antine had to be honest when he said that he trusted Simone about as far as he could throw him.

He felt the hand grab on his shoulder and he reflexively turned to spit out swear words in Sardinian, stopping himself upon realizing who all he was looking at.

“How did you get here so fast?”

“The _train,_ Antine, is a not-so-recent invention that helps us all move much quicker. But we’re not here to talk about advancements in the field of transportation. You gonna tell me what the _fuck_ that was at Custoza?”

“But I didn’t—“

“A commander is only as good as the men who decide they don’t follow his orders. It’s on you for not being more assertive just as much as it is on her for disobeying you. It was her, right?”

“Yes.”

“She’s been debriefed already?”

“I can tell her anything and give her any kind of lecture, but… _s’abidu non faghet monza._ ”

“What?”

“It’s an old saying. The habit doesn’t make the monk. Means…you can put someone in a situation that’s different than their typical lifestyle, but they’re probably not going to change. She’s a street-brawler, not a soldier.”

“So she’s not a born soldier? Big—“

“No, Gilbert, that’s not what I’m saying. _None of us are like you._ We have other things that are part of us other than bloodshed. Look at Lovino—Naples, Romano. He can’t cope on the battlefield. He’s got some issues from the Roman Republic and just in general. He was shaking like a leaf out there. If he could, he would’ve pulled his limbs inside of himself like a…like a…fuck, um, uh…a _Tortuga_?”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘ _Schildkröte_ ’.”

“Okay, that’s bullshit, the damn animal’s not even an amphibian—“

“So wait, you know the words for bloodshed and monk and street-brawler, but you can’t fucking say _turtle_?”

“Some things come up more than others in Roderich’s household, your language is a goddamn mess, and also fuck you.”

Gilbert’s hand went up to Antine’s shoulder.

“You’ll learn German to impress an Austrian. That’s not enough for me, _Spargeltarzan._ You will have to learn to fight to impress me. So you gonna grow a spine for me, Antine?”

Gilbert often forgot that Antine was the same height as him. Antine’s back straightening and his chin tilting defiantly back served as a very sudden reminder.

“I already had one, _sir_.”

“Where is she?”

“I think she is dinner.”

“Are your punishments so Draconian that you resort to cannibalism? I must say that you don’t look the type to do that to someone.”

Antine picked up on the mispronunciation and flushed dark red.

“Excuse me, she’s _eating_ dinner.”

“So she’s got an appetite. What’s she looking like otherwise?”

He jerked his chin towards the medical tent.

“Go see for yourself. I have a war to win, sir.”

Gilbert snorted before leaving, fingers trailing casually across Antine’s shoulders before the Sardinian was deprived of the touch. Antine’s throat burned with desire for something a little stronger than the watered-down liquor in his flask.

~~

Gilbert snapped open the tent flap and Serafina felt her stomach drop close to where Lovino was changing her dressings. Lovino exhaled through his nose and Sicily realized she was holding her breath.

“So, Sicily, how does it feel to walk on Sardinia’s dreams and on my pocketbook?”

Her brow leveled faster than her temper and her brain did not catch up with her mouth and heart in time:

“Is it too early in our partnership to ask what the fuck your problem is?”

“Oh, _I’ve_ got no problems, _muttchen._ I’ve worked those out a long time ago. That stunt may have won you Malta some three centuries ago, and maybe against the French eight hundred-odd years ago, but you cannot pull that bullshit again. Understood?”

“I already had this conversation with—“

“Yeah, and you’re going to have it a second time. And a third, and a fourth, and a fifth time, probably, with everyone else you fucked over. That’s what happens when you commit _mutiny._ ”

“It wasn’t MUTINY!” Lovino was trying to keep her still, whispering something quickly in Sicilian before ducking back down to reapply the poultice. “Antine said it was up to me as to whether I was the main force or the diversion. I charged because I thought I was the main force. He hadn’t told me he’d decided he was maining.”

“Actions speak louder than words. A miscommunication has a body count out here. You better pick up on that quickly.”

Lovino pressed just a bit too hard on the bandage and she groaned.

“Believe me, I know.”

Lovino said something to her that Gilbert couldn’t understand; God, he needed to learn Italian.

Lovino was propping her up to get some idea of whether or not her struggling had opened her wounds and Gilbert found himself sitting down on the cot next to her. He registered that someone else had walked into the tent but he wasn’t sure whom.

“Prussia, what is your name?”

“You just said it—“

“No, your human one. And I don’t recall saying that you could use _tu_ with me.”

“You revoked your _vous_ rights when you asked me what my problem was and _hurt my feelings_ , something no one has been capable of doing since I sold my soul for a side of beef back in 1259.”

When she laughed her face changed almost completely. It fascinated him.

“It’s Gilbert.”

“French.”

“ _I know._ What’s yours, then?”

She got very quiet.

“Come on, you can’t ask without some intent of reciprocity. I think I know what it is.”

“Oh?”

He looked over at her husband, switching to Latin.

“Is her name Nina?”

“It’s her name. It’s also an aspiration,” Lovino responded in purposely terrible French. Sicily rolled her eyes and Lovino finished his work on her wounds, picking up the empty bowl she’d left at her side and shamelessly eating whatever she’d left. He was thankful she was somehow more of a picky eater than he was.

“A _ha._ So it’s Nina?”

The Sicilian woman’s face hardened and Gilbert realized he’d probably struck a nerve or ten.

“You are not allowed to call me that. My human name is Serafina Pavone. You may call me that.”

“That’s quite a mouthful, Se-ra-fi-na.” The Germanic trill of Gilbert’s R made Lovino wince.

“That reminds me, you all need call names. Things we can say in letters and on the field in case we can’t betray who all is who.”

“Oh? How fancy.”

“Not necessarily.”

He turned back to look, knowing at this point that Antine had been awkwardly hovering off in the corner.

“Handsome.” This took Antine aback, just like he thought it would.

“Excuse me?”

“That’s your name. Handsome. And you, Lovino. You’ll be Jack.”

“Where the hell did you get _Jack_ from?”

“That’s the point of a name like that; it doesn’t make sense. Myself…”

“Fish. You look dead enough.”

“ _Thank you, Antine._ Ni—Serafina, you, naturally, will be Queen Anne.”

“Let that joke rest, _please_ , and won’t it be obvious that I’ll be the Queen if I’m the only woman and there are only men’s names otherwise?”

“Good point. I guess that means that Lovino has to be the Virgin Mary.”

“I hate you.”

~~

Gilbert was a man torn asunder and Antine knew half of the reason was himself and his inability to be listened to. On one hand he wanted to tell Gilbert to go back to his own corps and play with his fancy new gun with men who exclusively spoke his language, but on the other he felt compelled to keep Gilbert near him like some sort of fanged security blanket.

“We’re going to finish this up quickly. Hit him where it hurts and he won’t hit back. Venice will be yours in a matter of weeks.“

“Yeah. I heard you were setting up peace talks with him already.”

Gilbert stopped, licking his lips before casually thanking the person who put the status report in his hands.

“I was under the impression that fewer casualties meant more to you than your honor. You want one of your friends to die in your arms over having this dealt with?”

“ _No_ , but I thought there was some sort of understanding that we were allies.”

“We _are_ allies. And allegiance means we are working towards a common goal: beating Austria and restoring Venice to Italy. Correct?”

“…correct.”

“What, did you want to be at the negotiating table? Look into his pretty purple eyes and tell him about how lovely he is before you forward the treaty so he’s not as mad?”

“I have a complex relationship with Austria.”

“Do tell?”

“I was…” Antine sighed and stretched uncomfortably. “I had a bit of an infatuation with him at one point. I’m still trying to get over it,” he admitted half-heartedly.

Gilbert snorted, looking down at his hands before opening the status report. Antine’s pulse quickened and he could feel his hair start to stand up.

“You and half of Europe.” Gilbert squinted at the paper, being able to parse Italian with his knowledge of Latin but not being able to speak it. His perplexed expression switched very quickly to impish delight after reading one bit of information in particular.

“Oh, Roderich, what have you _done_?”

Gilbert crouched over a map to make a mark in something that was a little more permanent than the pencil behind Antine’s ear.

“Come here.” Antine obliged and Gilbert tapped his pen idly on the map.

“This is where he’s positioned. Know what that means?”

“Means I can kick his ass off the mountain?”

Gilbert grinned and Antine’s stomach twisted.

“You’re _learning_ ,” Gilbert admitted before casually ruffling Antine’s hair and moving to walk out of the tent. “Let’s move. If you start ahead and get everyone mobilized by tomorrow, I’ll meet up with you later.”

“Deal.”

“Oh, and Antine?”

“Yes?”

“ _Be assertive.”_

~~

Roderich’s mind was not in the present. Roderich’s mind was still wrapped up in what had transpired a week and a half ago.

Do you know what it feels like to sit tattered in front of someone you’d called a barbarian, someone you’d called coarse and savage, not suited for raising a little boy, and ask for mercy?

No, not _mercy_ , necessarily. He was being melodramatic.

He’d had the advantage. He’d had more soldiers; he just wasn’t sure how to _use_ them. He’d ordered the withdrawal and mandated the telegram to the Emperor. He’d managed to disappear from Gilbert for a little over two days.

But two days is still only two days, and Gilbert had a lot more on his side than just a spyglass and an evil smile before saying “Herr von Moltke, I have found them.”

“Well done, Herr Bielschmidt. We’ll attack at morning.”

Königgrätz had been exactly what Roderich had desperately been trying to avoid since the war’s onset. The last thing Roderich needed was to be target practice when Gilbert wanted to try out his fancy new guns.

When the smoke had cleared and it was clear who all had lost the least and would get up to claim victory, Roderich woke up with a missing leg and a shattered pair of glasses. Roderich’s medics had withdrawn with the rest of the troops and had left him to die and fertilize the soil with the other dead and about-to-be-dead. How refined of them.

He coughed dust out of his lungs and tried to ignore the way he was bleeding out from his severed limb. If there was anyone who could continue to ignore a serious problem until it either went away or murdered him violently, it was definitely he.

Gilbert found him after he’d moved about seven feet.

“If I shoot you and you die, when you wake up your leg will be back.”

“I’d rather die than let you shoot me. I know you just want to use your fancy gun.”

“I mean…if you’d rather die? So either way you’re dying? If you’d rather your dignity, I can take off the bayonet and let you carve your own heart out. I can give it to your wife. Let her use it like a paperweight.”

“That’s vile.”

“War is vile, Roderich, in case you haven’t noticed. Can you please just surrender?”

“Not likely.”

“ _Not likely._ After today it looks pretty damn likely.”

“We shall see.”

“You’re missing a leg.”

“You’ve lost a few teeth. Everyone’s shattered some bones on the field on this occasion.”

“We’ll see what your diplomats say. I think you’re full of shit.”

Gilbert turned on his heels. Roderich could not do so, still sitting on the ground and feeling faint.

Come ten or so days later, to where Roderich was sitting now, and his leg was still sore. His wife was putting cold presses on it each night and complaining that she needed to go out with him to the front; this wasn’t something that should be happening to him, let her do more than strategy. Roderich was unfortunately just as defined by his stubbornness as he was defined by his complete ineptitude in the battlefield, and therefore would tell her that shush, it was fine, he was fine, everything was going according to plan. Feliciano wasn’t locked away somewhere in his home city, the war would be won, and maybe that dark-skinned _menace_ would finally leave him in peace.

Things were not fine.

~~

Lovino had been noticing more and more how much people changed speaking languages that weren’t their own. The most obvious example was perhaps Sicily, who switched very easily to French but seemed to lose all of her warmth in the process. Maybe that was a symptom of having been under foreign control for such a long time. Lovino didn’t know if he felt more comfortable speaking Italian or Spanish; at this point, speaking Spanish just made his chest hurt.

He was thinking about how different Antine seemed to be while speaking German when they were deciding who was going where. After the disaster at Custoza and Lombardy’s own failings as a foot soldier, he’d been sent to help with the Navy. Why they’d kept Lovino’s wife, who had led a senseless second charge of the Light Brigade, remained a mystery.

At least she seemed slightly guilty about it.

“Lovino should remain in the medical tent. It’s where he’s best suited.”

“Agreed.” Lovino did not decide to dispute the other two’s claims and instead casually rested his hand on the handle of the empty revolver at his hip.

“I’ll be with the cavalry and Serafina, you’re being demoted to foot soldier.”

“I…fine.”

“If you can prove yourself meriting a horse again then I’ll give it back to you.”

“What, like a doll? A sweet? Are you keeping me off of a horse like you keep a schoolboy away from marzipan?”

“No, I’m keeping you away from the cavalry the same way you keep an arsonist away from a torch.”

She fell silent and Antine cracked his back.

“As usual, the goal is we get the Austrians out of Trentino so that we can have enough time and energy to go through to Veneto.”

Dawn comes for every man and while there was debate on if they were human, nations always _felt_ human, and time passing was no exception. Lovino had woken up with a feeling that something was going to happen.

“Nina, is there any way you can stay back?”

Antonio’s words from back before the Republic, back before any of the fighting, rang clearly in his head.

_Even if you survive, you’re going to survive knowing that it was you that lived while everyone else died. I’m alive, for example, instead of chivalrous Aragon, old man La Mancha or darling, darling Valencia, people who died in my arms because I was getting strong and they weren’t. Viva!_

She shook her head with a smile that Lovino saw as patronizing but was probably intended to be reassuring.

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll be fine.”

_Many, many territories on your end, Lovino. If you live through a civil war with that many people, you will have blood on your hands. There’s no might have to in this scenario. You will have to kill people._

Antonio had been wrong, he reasoned. Lovino had never pulled the trigger on any of his fellow nations. But maybe that’s not all that he’d meant back some twenty years ago. Maybe he would never kill someone directly. But…his inaction, his inability to function on the field. That would be the bullet.

_And not a day will go by without you thinking of all those dead people. You won’t be able to sleep at night. If Sicily and Sardinia join the movement, they might die too. Do you really want to be responsible for that?_

There was something he couldn’t help; they were in far too deep for him to keep that from transpiring. Now that they were unified, now that they were calling themselves a unified Italy (at least in name), how much time did they have left? Sicily had quickly healed from an impalement, yes, but who knew if she’d heal if that bayonet had pierced just a few inches higher and hit something a little more vital?

He was standing at the front of their base of operations. Both he and Sicily were shivering. She had to leave in a matter of moments. Antonio’s worlds scrawled themselves into his consciousness.

_Lovino, are you really going to let her lead you by the nose to dig her grave?_

“Nina, stay.”

She grabbed him by his shirt collar and kissed him. His hands found her waist and he pretended to ignore whatever journalist took a picture when she broke off with a grin.

“You know I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.”

“Come back in one piece, Nina.”

“Of course.”

_To dig yours right next to it?_

She trotted off and he didn’t turn back to go inside the tent until he saw the top of her head vanish into the mosaic of the other soldiers’ caps.

Don’t worry? Of course he would worry.

~~

Serafina was not prepared for how cold she would be up in the Alps. She’d begun to don a uniform per Gilbert’s insistence (one with no skirt; trousers were freeing, but a skirt had more space to keep knives. But try telling _that_ to a decidedly male military official, why don’t you?)

“I just don’t know if I can kill, you know? I’ve never killed a person.” she heard one young man say. She realized that she couldn’t relate. She kept that to herself.

She knew enough to know that Gilbert would not be with them right now. She knew enough to know that if she went against Antine’s orders again she would probably be relieved of command and sent back to Palermo, demoted from military official to Neapolitan bedwarmer faster than La Marmora could wrap his stubby fingers around the medals on her lapels.

T _here is a higher standard for me,_ she lamented while loading her rifle.

“We’re running out of bullets,” called one of the infantrymen. She responded by flipping her rifle around in her hand to beat an Austrian soldier over the head with the butt.

Italians started hooting and cheering before doing something similar.

It was in the middle of all of this that she saw the throng of Austrian soldiers out in the open. It was around that time that she decided to make a break for it, status be damned.

Maybe fifteen seconds after she’d decided to charge she’d been grabbed and lifted onto the back of Gilbert Bielschmidt’s horse, resulting with her straddling the mare with her back to him. In the half-second that she’d glimpsed his face she had seen that he was not smiling.

“Do what I say and maybe I won’t report you.”

She watched as her gun fell farther out of view.

“I need a weapon.”

“Take my rifle.”

“It’s the fancy one. I just reload with the cartridge, right?” She’d seen him playing target practice with his new toy enough to have some idea of how the “needle gun” worked.

“Yes.”

She constantly thanked God for guns and for having strong legs; without either of those things she would probably be thrown off the horse and definitely not long for this world.

There was the telltale whizz of a bullet zipping through the air and she heard Gilbert make a discomforted noise.

“Se-ra-fi-na, you see there’s someone over on that ridge with a rifle? I need you to shoot him. That rifle’s more long range than what I have in my hands.”

She began to aim, still jostled by the horse’s movements.

“We’re moving too fast and I’m too low. We either go slower or we go towards him.”

“How good is your balance?”

“Very good.”

“Can you stand and make that shot?”

She was quiet before moving, scrabbling for purchase on the horse’s back while not having the luxury of stirrups.

“Gilbert, I will need your back for support.”

“Of course.”

Gilbert’s eyes were locked on the company he was about to obliterate when the shot rang out behind him.

“He’s hit.”

“You--!!”

“HOLY SHIT, I HIT HIM! I DID THAT—“

Another bullet flung itself in their direction, flying right past Gilbert’s ear and burying itself in the woman behind him, flinging her directly under horse hooves.

“FUCK! FUCK, _FUCK, FUCK—“_

His ears were still ringing when he jumped directly off his horse to get down and grab Sicily. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know how serious her injuries were. He crouched over her, unbuttoning his coat and wrapping it around what little was left of her midsection in an attempt to stop the bleeding. He couldn’t see an exact entry or exit wound; all he could see was a mangled flap of skin and a bloody pulp where her stomach should have been.

“I shouldn’t have boasted, I know I messed up—“

“No, no, you did great,” he hushed, picking her up before moving gingerly to get back on the horse that had been waiting for them so patiently.

~~

Lovino was dressing a human’s wound when Gilbert came into the tent in his shirtsleeves with Serafina unresponsive in his arms. Gilbert put Serafina down abruptly and unbuttoned the coat.

“No,” said Lovino bluntly, finishing wrapping the human before bolting to prop Sicily up and get a better look at what all had happened. Gilbert took three steps back and realized his hands were shaking. Lovino’s were not, swiping her skin clean with iodine before pulling the edge of the wound back to see what all had to be repaired.

“Stay awake, eyes on me.”

“Lovino,” the young woman groaned, barely conscious, “ _vogghiù riurmiri._ ”

“No, nope, no, you have to keep your eyes open. Open your eyes. If I have to look at your insides, you have to as well.”

Her breathing was shallow and her eyes were barely open. Someone was pointing at Gilbert’s leg and exclaiming something.

“You got shot, Gilbert,” said Lovino in matter-of-fact Latin. “Please let Sebastiano take care of you.”

Gilbert was seated. He had just enough adrenaline coursing through his system that not only did his bullet wound not hurt, but the removal of the actual bullet was something of an afterthought for him. His eyes were still locked on Lovino, who was working with a speed only allowed and practiced by the professionally desperate.

“Nina, keep your head up,” he said sharply before starting sutures.

Gilbert managed to hobble out of the medical tent unassisted. He didn’t want to intrude if she passed.

The leg wound was a trifle; he’d feel fine within a few hours. The bandaging was more a formality for powers like him.

Lovino came out when Gilbert had already had the time to find a cigar and light it.

“Can you share?”

“Aren’t you a little young for that sort of thing?”

“Well I just got finished bringing my wife back from the dead and I aged about fifty years in the process, so not anymore.”

“…Fair.” He passed off the cigar and Lovino took a long drag, tilting his head back and exhaling the smoke before looking over at Gilbert. There was a ferocious type of sadness in his gaze and it made Gilbert both wary and ashamed.

“Lovino, it was my fault—“

“Of course it was. You Germans don’t have any concept of decency towards any people but yourselves. You come in and take what you want and don’t give a fuck who-all you hurt or leave in the process. Your father made a widow of my mother and your little brother made an orphan of me. And today _you_ came quite close to making me a widower.”

“But you’re smoking my cigar.”

Gilbert admired his hands, big but somehow still delicate, as his eyes moved to the cigar burning in Lovino’s fingers. Lovino chuckled.

“Got me there.”

Lovino kissed his teeth quietly before giving Gilbert’s cigar back.

“How bad was the damage?”

“Probably not as bad as it was when you saw it. She heals fast. She gets it from her father.”

“Her father?”

“Carthage. They said he could heal so fast that in the time between cutting off his arm and wiping off your blade he was punching you again with the regrown arm.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. That’s why, you know… _carthago delenda est_ and all that.”

“Right. So…if your father killed hers, is that…

“Any bad blood? It’s an old feud and they’re both dead now. I don’t feel like it affects us much. It was a long time ago, even for us. But that’s me. I don’t know how much she’s still affected. I mean, do you have old feuds that don’t matter anymore?”

Gilbert tried to think.

“No, people that hated me in the past still hate me now.”

“That’ll change. People forget, scars fade. Usually.”

“Well, we’re _Germans_ ,” he said with a sarcastic hiss, “and we don’t care about other people, right?”

Lovino’s pretty cupid bow of a mouth curled into a bitter smile. Gilbert found himself thinking about Erzsi when he finished his thought:

“Especially us Northern ones, we’re the worst of the worst. I’m coarse and ugly and _savage_. I’m just a _Saupreiß._ ”

“Yeah, you are.” Lovino took the cigar out of Gilbert’s hands, tapping out the ashes. “There was something my mother taught me. She was Muslim and it’s one teaching of Islam; it’s referenced in the Qu’ran. It’s that no one is below you in any sense of the word.”

“What, giving me a lecture on being humble—“

Lovino’s hazel eyes glowed and watered from the cigar smoke before he pressed an imperative finger into Gilbert’s chest.

“The other half of that teaching is that no one is _above_ you, either. Remember that, _German_.”

And just like that, he was gone, and Gilbert was left with a Hungarian girl weighing as heavily on his heart as an Austrian man was weighing on his mind and body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spargeltarzan: the German equivalent of "beanpole". Antine is tol. 
> 
> "I think she's dinner/she's eating dinner": In German, the difference between ist (is) and isst (eats/is eating) is...very small. 
> 
> "It's a name and also an aspiration" -- a "ninna" in sicilian means a nap. Lovino is tired. 
> 
> Fancy gun: The Dreyse needle gun! 
> 
> vogghiù riurmiri: I want to sleep. 
> 
> Saupreiß: "Pig Prussian" was a name used by the Bavarians (and maybe Austrians, but I have no clue) to deride Prussians/northern Germans for their brutish behavior.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last chapter.  
> I'm going to take a hiatus and work on another project I started awhile ago after a few days' repose.  
> Thanks so much for reading. Bless y'all. It's been real.

Was there anyone in the world more prone to getting grievously injured than she? No. The answer was no.

She tried to sit up and winced before Lovino noticed that she’d regained consciousness.

“Did we win? How long was I out?” she asked, reaching for the cup he was handing her, smelling the mixture, and grimacing before choking it down. Lovino was beyond the point of being offended by her taste buds’ rejection of his medicine; if it made her heal faster, it didn’t matter if it was bitter.

“Long enough to make me wonder if you were waking up again.”

She tried to brush off how serious his tone was and swallow the lump rising in her throat. How do you tell someone that you’d been hearing a choir of voices singing in your dead first language before you’d woken up? She had not seen the gates of Heaven; she imagined it was best for her not to say what all she’d seen to begin with.

“Oh, please, you know I’m dying off in a much more dramatic fashion.”

“More dramatic than falling off the back of a horse doing a trick shot?”

“There will at least be lightning and a chorus of angels. I’ll be naked and entwined with a snake from the Amazon. Maybe tears will be shed. Not by me, of course, because I will not want to muss my makeup and hair, which will be perfect.”

“Nina, don’t joke about dying. You’re not leaving me alone.”

“Pino—“

“Do you know what it feels like to have someone you care about bleeding out in front of you? Do you know what that’s like? You said you’d be fine and look what—“

“I promised that I’d come back in one piece. I came back in one piece, didn’t I? I mean…some things were hanging off of me—“

“And _out of you_ —“

“But!” She held up one finger. “All one piece!”

Lovino wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and Nina realized her flippancy wasn’t doing her any favors. She lowered her hand and grabbed the one of his that wasn’t resting under his chin.

“I did that because I knew that even if something bad happened to me, you would make sure it was okay. And you know I’d do the same for you.”

“…I know you would.”

“Can you tell me why my back is hurting so badly?”

“Because you got stepped on by a horse and you have three horseshoe-shaped bruises on your back?”

“I am Icarus; I was trampled by horses because I tried to shoot the sun.”

“No, you’re Phaeton. You tried to _become_ the sun and set yourself on fire in the process.”

“You know me, always taking that extra step. Wait…Gilbert—“

“Prussia took a bullet to the leg. He’s healed since.”

“And Pino…” That finger got brought up again. “Did we win?”

“It’s unclear. From what Antine said it sounds like the Austrians are waning, but I think he just wants this to be over.”

“I do too.”

“Is that why you decided to stand on the back of a galloping horse?”

“I will have you know that I _made the shot_ and it was more critical than any injury I may have sustained in the process.”

~~

Antine was welcoming Simone back to the front from his brief service in the highly divided navy. Simone somehow looked paler.

“How was the ocean?”

“I’m not suited for it.”

“Amen.”

The Lombard pushed past Antine to go into his tent. Antine was grabbed by a messenger and Simone was left to his own devices.

And what did Simone Capra do with his free time, you ask?

He wrote. And wrote, and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote some more.

_Feliciano,_

_~~I don’t know what to do~~ _

_~~Would it be dishonest if I~~ _

_~~I have this urge to~~ _

_~~Would it be absurd if I said~~ _

_~~This is stupid. I’m stupid. We’re all stupid. This will never work. We’re doomed.~~ _

He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes with gloved hands. His throat burned and his eyelids still felt raw with sea salt. Was this how Cassandra felt at the fall of Troy?

He’d done the accounting; the only way he’d still be able to push forward with what all he had was if he somehow merged resources with someone. As if any of these people had the slightest business savvy to perform a merger?

Absolutely not.

As if anyone wanted to ask him what he thought? As if anyone wanted to think farther than “let’s all be together, we all like Catholicism, and cake, and fine liquor”.

One cannot have any _cake_ or _fine liquor_ without any _money._

He knew Sicily, at the very least, was withholding something from the treasury. He needed to know what it was. Why should she have to contribute less?

_Feliciano,_

_I know we figured out you were in the Doge’s Palace. I hope you’re okay. We’ll maybe live together again soon._

Would he really have to live with all of them in that giant house again? Was that really the plan for all eternity? That would _never_ do. The Sardinian was too far away from the mainland to know anything about who he and Feliciano were.

_Feliciano,_

_~~I’m going insane.~~ _

_~~How can a goatherder somehow take over an entire country~~ _

_~~I think I’m going to have to start overcompensating for~~ _

_~~Is it possible for incompetent people to be competent at only one thing~~ _

_~~Maybe I should be kinder from now on but that never seemed to make you laugh as hard~~ _

_~~I heard that even after fighting a civil war about whether or not Africans were people, America is still not sure if Africans are people.~~ _

_~~I mean, am I people? Don’t answer that question.~~ _ ~~~~

He crumpled up the paper and walked out of the tent to dump the failed letters in the fire.

~~

“We cannot let Bezzecca remain in Austrian hands,” stated Antine before wiping the corners of his mouth.

“Ideally, nothing remains in Austrian hands and we go home,” interjected Simone, fingers rubbing at the bluish skin under his eyes.

“Gilbert gets back soon—“

“Who gives a _damn_ about the Prussian? How is he going to help with Italian affairs when he isn’t even Italian?”

“Hasn’t stopped him before.”

“What are you paying him?”

Antine shuffled a few papers.

“That’s none of your concern, Simone. It’s from my treasury—“

“No, the Italian treasury. We all pay a share.”

“It’s none of your concern as to how I pay him. But anyhow, as I was saying, we cannot let them keep Bezzecca. However, we also need to focus on getting to Feliciano before Roderich takes any… _measures_. So what I propose is we send one faction to Venice and another goes to Bezzecca. If we retake Bezzecca, we keep pushing. Ideally, as always, we would get them out of Trentino.”

Simone’s palms were sweating. So…a forceful takeover of Venice? Was Antine going to give Feliciano a choice in becoming Italian, or was he going to be sold away just like Simone had been?

“How many people do you want to delegate to Bezzecca and how many do you want to send to find Feliciano?”

“I’m going to go to Bezzecca; I know this terrain well and I think my people need me more than most factions, but I fully intend to send Gilbert to Venice. He moves faster than us and will make sure Feliciano’s recovered. Lovino should go with him as well. I’m going to send Serafina with them because firstly, I want her out of my hair, and secondly I haven’t any idea how injured she still is and I think it would be easier for her to be helpful out that way than with me. Where do you want to be?”

_Away from here. What gets me away from here fast enough? If I help him push the Austrians out, it means that an armistice will be more likely and we’ll finally settle this nonsense once and for all. I would be of no use for this Venice pipe dream Antine has of retrieving Feliciano._

“I’ll go with you.”

~~

Gilbert had been standing at attention in front of Antine, totally silent, as Antine had been giving him a run-through of everything that had transpired while he’d been on his own side of the front.

“Gilbert.”

“Yes?”

“I am going to go to Bezzecca personally and I want you to lead a coalition to Venice.”

“Why me?”

“You have an air of authority.”

“I’m flattered.”

“Think of it as practice for your unification, _ja_?” Gilbert rolled his eyes and Antine gave a small chuckle at Gilbert’s expense.

“ _Das ist sehr nett von dir_. I’ll do it. Who all will accompany me?”

“Serafina and Lovino.”

“You won’t want your offensive and support on the battlefield? You’re going with…yourself and artillery?”

“Little Miss Offensive took an Austrian bullet to the abdomen, isn’t fully healed, and Lovino is a medic. She needs to be around him, and he can’t be around battlefields. It makes no sense for me to keep either.”

“Ah.”

“Then if that’s settled, we’re leaving as soon as camp is fully broken. That’ll give you about an hour. Are you capable of that?”

“Of course I am.”

“Good. Wash up, switch boots, feed your horse, whatever you need to do.”

“ _Danke so sehr, Hauptmann._ ”

If Gilbert could have seen Antine’s eyes behind those glasses he would have seen them patently rolling.

“Get out.”

~~

Serafina’s belly still felt raw. She wasn’t bleeding, but her scars still held that fleshy, neonatal pinkness that implied they were moments from bursting back open into a bloody pulp.

Lovino had done the best anyone could do; nevertheless, the scar webbed out from the impact point like fault lines from a crater.

He gathered the bandages he’d just pulled off the healing wound and glanced around furtively before pressing a gentle kiss to the sensitive skin. His lips touched the scar at the exact moment where both she hissed quietly and Gilbert pushed his way into the tent.

“What kind of playing doctor are you going for, Vargas?”

Lovino’s head snapped up and he didn’t have to look over to Nina to know that she was turning red.

“I think I missed the part of medical school where kissing boo-boos makes them actually better.”

Unfortunately for Gilbert, Lovino recovered quickly from sarcasm and could spit it back out faster than an olive pit.

“That’s my secret. I heal with the power of love.”

“How effective could that be?”

“I’m Italian. We’re broke. We have no other way of doing so.”

“If your wife there kicks me in the pants, will love heal me?”

Lovino gave a tight smile, looking frighteningly like Antonio to the Prussian.

“Wouldn’t work on you ‘cuz I don’t love you.”

“Autsch.”

“Pleasantries aside, I assume you’re here about going to Venice.”

“Yeah. Pack what you need. I intend to get there by sundown.”

Gilbert saw Lovino’s dark brows lower over wide, serious hazel eyes. _That’s not possible, Gilbert._

“It’s five hours if we go at full pace the entire time.”

“We’re still in the mountains.”

“I said sundown, not an exact time.”

“We all know you mean around 5:47 PM when you say sundown. It’s how your people are.”

“Wow, _stereotypes_. Where’s the love, _Arzt Maria_?”

“Are we going or no?”

Gilbert grinned.

“We’re breaking camp now. Meet me where the fire was once you’re ready.”

“Will do.”

“And Sicily?”

The woman looked over at the sound of the accented French directed at her.

“I’m not expecting too much heavy lifting on your end, but are you alright?”

“I am at eighty-three percent capacity.”

“Specific. I like it. Anyhow, we’ll break out in probably half an hour.”

“Got it.”

~~

Gilbert and Antine were across from each other and saddling their horses.

“And you’re certain that you don’t need any of these nations. You think you have this?”

“I don’t think so, but it’s not worth trying this with you all.”

“Why us and not a small division of humans?”

“Because you won’t die,” responded Antine matter-of-factly before adjusting his spurs. “You think any Austrian soldier is going to stand in the way of three leviathans?”

“You underestimate just how little human beings think of their own lives, Antine.”

“Oh, no, I think many tend to overvalue them. People that matter think that they don’t, whereas people who don’t matter think that they do. Which is why the soldiers may resist, but the commanders will step aside and let you take Venice.”

Gilbert stopped, looking back at Antine and cocking a thin eyebrow.

“You don’t think highly of authority figures, do you?”

Antine hesitated before lengthening his stirrup.

“I think the people in authority, especially recently, have an alarming tendency to inflate their self-worth,” he responded. “And more often than not at the expense of those who look to them for leadership and aid.”

Gilbert’s mouth twisted and his eyebrows flexed.

“Won’t debate that.”

A foot soldier ran to the mounted Sardinian and said something quickly in yet another language that Gilbert did not speak.

“There’s been a development,” said Antine, nudging his horse. “I have to go. I expect a telegram from Venice within three days. Do not disappoint me.”

“I will not.”

Antine was off. Gilbert chewed the inside of his cheek while watching him charge to the front. Gilbert found a smile curling across his lips in spite of himself.

Go. _Go_.

~~

They had embarked about three hours ago and had slowed down once their horses had decided that they’d had enough for a while and slowed on their own.

“Mutiny,” hissed Gilbert to himself as he turned around to grab at a canteen of water. Lovino was helping Serafina out of her saddle. Judging by the look on her face, it had been perhaps a few days too soon for her to be riding to this extent.

She was walking across the clearing to Gilbert, calling back to Lovino in their dialect in an even tone that was either peaceful or passive aggressive.

“Serafina, can I ask you a question?”

“Yes.”

“How could you shoot like that with a left-handed gun?”

“I’m left handed?”

It was at about that moment that the bayonet at Gilbert’s side somehow snared itself into Serafina’s curls. Both stopped all movement and looked at the other. Gilbert finally slid down from his perch to assess how much she was stuck.

“Gilbert, get it out.”

“I mean, yeah, I want my bayonet and you want to not be attached to me physically. I get it. Is cutting it—“

_“No!”_

“Okay, then.”

She knew enough to not try to run forward and away from the pressure of the _knife_ entwined with her hair.

“Just get it out, you’re hurting me—“

“I mean, hang on, let me just…quick tug, hang on, _muttchen_ —“

The bayonet came out in his hands. So did a good eighth of her hair, cut clean off her scalp.

_Please don’t look behind you, oh my God, what do I do—_

She was turning. She looked to the bayonet, and then to the hair in Gilbert’s hands, and then into Gilbert’s stunned, wide eyes. Her hand went to cover her mouth and Gilbert’s clamped shut into a straight, concerned line.

And then she began to cry.

Gilbert hadn’t frozen up like that in absolute terror since his first sally into the Holy Land.

These were not tears of anguish or any kind of lament; these were the tears of a woman who was so angry with her current situation that she had no other way to express it than to weep.

“Fine. FINE!”

She grabbed for the offending bayonet and began cutting off the rest of her hair with it, mouth screwed shut and eyes burning as hot as her face was.

“Fine! It’s fine! Who cares! It’s just hair!”

She started taking the long swathes of black hair that were falling off her scalp and scattering them about tree branches.

“Let’s let the birds have it! Let the bugs and the leaves have it! Fine!”

Gilbert saw Lovino pick up one forgotten lock of hair and tuck it into his pocket, making eye contact with Gilbert and pressing a finger against his lips.

“This will do till we get to Venice,” she finally said. Much of it was uneven, as haircuts were wont to be in situations where one was cutting the hair off with a bayonet and not a pair of scissors.

“We have to stop anyway. Our horses can’t continue like this. Let’s just set up here for a few hours, stretch, and uh…whatever else.”

Lovino was trying to not laugh at how genuinely concerned the foreigner’s gaze was.

“I’m…I’m going to go over to that pond,” said Serafina evenly, “…and wash my face.”

Gilbert nodded.

“I’m going to wash too,” said Lovino, stretching his back until his shoulders clicked.

“Okay.” Gilbert turned on his heel while chewing his lip. Serafina was clutching the exposed part of her scalp and looked like she was about to start crying anew. They’d reached the bank of the pond and her shoes were off almost on reflex. Lovino ruffled through his knapsack to find his shaving kit.

“Nina, take off your blouse. Let me cut it even.”

She hesitated.

“He’s not gonna see; he’s already gone. He’ll probably get lost for a good three quarters of an hour. Enough time to get this done and over with.”

She finally obliged him, stripping down to her waist and sitting on a rock in front of the water. She didn’t dare look down at her reflection. Lovino got the razor out of its case and uncapped the bottle of shaving lotion.

“My entire head going to smell like your face,” she lamented, wrinkling her nose at the overpowering smell of cherry laurel.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I mean, I’m already bald. What else could happen to me?”

She sighed shakily and Lovino stayed quiet, working diligently at salvaging what was left of her dignity by making the too-short hair as even and intentional looking as possible.

“You know when my hair was like this last?”

“When?”

“Back when I first came to your house in chains.”

Lovino let out a low whistle. Serafina winced at the tugging on her scalp.

“Can I ask you a question…like, regarding that?”

“What, slavery? Figure you would know more than enough about that already.”

“No, I mean like, do you still feel pain over everything that happened?”

“He was my _father_ —“

“But if something were to happen,” he postulated, casually washing the razor in the pond water, “where I wasn’t around. And you had to answer to Feliciano instead of me. Would you do it?”

“Why wouldn’t you be around?”

His mouth shut and he shaved a clear, smooth path up Serafina’s skull.

“ _Lovino_?”

“ _Excuse_ me for thinking about death and dying so much while being an army doctor.”

“You are not going to die.”

The star-shaped scar in the center of his chest throbbed dully and he smoothed out another path into the patchy black tufts on top of her head.

“Did Tuscany and Lombardy feel that way when they were about to die? What about Parma and Modena?”

“Carlo and Bartolo knew what was happening. They saw that they were aging and planned accordingly. Same with Adriana and Tristana. You? You haven’t aged at all. You are not getting sick. You will thrive.”

“I’m just saying anything is possible. You have your own landmass, Nina. There’s nothing physically separating my territory from Feli or Simone.”

“You will not die,” she said firmly. He finally stopped shaving.

“Look down, Nina.”

She finally obliged. She felt both relieved and horrified at her reflection: she recognized her face, but with the nubby, inch-long roots of hair instead of her waist-length curls she looked alien, sexless. She felt his hand run along the smooth plane of her scalp.

“Well now I guess those headscarves we keep getting from people will actually get worn,” she offered before wiping her eyes again. She could see the expression on Lovino’s face behind her ( _thoughtful,_ damn him) before he buried his face into her neck to kiss it. The stubble on his cheeks scratched her and her nose crinkled before he pulled away, sneezing the stray hair out of his nostrils.

“Wash your face,” she muttered. “You need to shave.”

~~

Gilbert had been lost about twenty-seven minutes, by his count, before he’d stumbled back on the pond.

Serafina was sitting on a rock, head shaved and chest bared, watching Lovino bathe.

Gilbert supposed Lovino had finished bathing since he was resting his chin on his hands, elbows propped against a rock, and singing to her.

He looked _healthy_ , Gilbert noted. He had none of the harsh angles or gravel-chewed bleakness of the northern countries and had none of that sunny, pleasant brutality that Antonio had; he shone old and timeless like stained glass in Jerusalem and looking at him Gilbert felt young and strangely outclassed. Lovino’s broad shoulders flexed and his hands pushed his wet hair back out of his face before Serafina said something that made him laugh and slide back into the water. From the tone of his voice it sounded like he was trying to get her to join him.

Gilbert wanted that, he realized. Gilbert killed that thought and went back to check on the horses. He’d give them ten more minutes.

~~

They were sitting in a circle just outside of Venice. For the first time in over a decade, the only thing separating Lovino from his brother was a small body of water. It sent a thrill through his spine.

Gilbert was sketching in the dirt.

“We know he’s in the Ducal Palace. Our best bet is to cut through the Grand Canal on a boat—“

“As opposed to what, horseback?”

“Shut up, Vargas. We change into civilian clothes and we take revolvers, not rifles. It’s best for two of us to go through the main doors and the other to climb up from the Bridge of Sighs and break through a window. People will be diverted to the two in plain sight, making it easier for whoever climbs to get into the prison.

“I’ll go through the window,” said Lovino. “Nina can’t climb, she’s injured, and I don’t think you can handle not being allowed to run through an old building with a revolver.”

“How do you know me that well already?”

“Don’t ask.”

~~

Gilbert admittedly should have asked Antine for Simone or, barring that, someone who had been to Venice prior. He and Serafina were lost.

They cut a strange figure, a bald, dark-skinned woman and a looming white-haired man stalking the corridors of the small city. Serafina had converted her shawl into a headscarf in an attempt at preserving her dignity, but it only garnered more stares.

“The palace is by the church, it’ll be fine, we just find the—“

They broke onto the plaza.

 _Oh._ There was the church.

He’d never seen something so beautiful. This, _this_ must be why Roderich had held onto Feliciano so tightly—

“Gilbert? _Fish_? Come on, close your mouth, we have to act natural,“ hissed Serafina, dragging him towards the palace.

“ _Queen Anne,_ I’m gonna need to you stop and shut up for five seconds.”

“What?”

“Look around you. Notice anything?”

They were still walking quickly towards the palace, a sprawling building maybe two hundred meters from the church.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

“No uniforms. Nowhere do I see any Austrian uniforms. We can assume that they’re all either diverted—“

They pushed through the doors, Gilbert’s hand fingering his handgun and the Sicilian pulling down her scarf to get a better view of her surroundings. Empty.

“Or what?”

There was the unmistakable _pop_ of someone cocking a gun preceding the sound of it going off.

“Or in civilian garb,” hissed Gilbert, stepping in front of Serafina and jerking at the impact of the bullet hitting his back. He wobbled for a second before regaining his footing.

“Flesh wound,” he breathed. The Sicilian woman rolled her eyes.

“We got this.”

~~

Lovino had a harder time climbing up a damn building’s wall. The window, however, was a walk in the park. How a man with hand tremors and chronic anxiety could pick and break locks so quickly and easily was a mystery. He lowered himself into the corridor and breathed. He had his gun, right?

He reached down to his pistol.

Yep.

He heard a commotion outside the doors before he heard running. Good to know that his wife and the Prussian were doing their jobs.

~~

“You’re not getting any farther,” said the Austrian soldier in front of the judicial chamber doors. “I won’t let you.”

Serafina rolled her eyes and put a bullet between his. Maybe not every man here spoke Sicilian, but they all were going to be speaking to Saint Peter.

~~

Feliciano had heard the gunshots and the shouting. Feliciano’d had a courtroom converted into a study before they’d moved him into the jail cell; he wondered what all had happened to that arrangement as he lay on his back and stared at a ceiling he only knew was there by implication of the smallest bit of light filtering in through the door.

The light was cut off before he heard the _thunk_ of a lock failing, and the door swung open. Feliciano squinted up at the familiar figure.

“…Lovino?”

~~

Gilbert and Serafina burst through the prison doors as Lovino led Feliciano out of his cell.

“What did you do to get that done to you?”

“You know, it really doesn’t take much. Pass out a few leaflets and people would _kill_ to see you in handcuffs.”

Gilbert was watching them silently while Serafina started to pick the locks on the rest of the cells.

“If I free you, will you support the Italian state?” she called in Tuscan.

“ _Sì,_ ” they called back.

~~

July 9, 1866

_Garibaldi,_

_Retreat from Trentino. An armistice has been reached with the Austrians. The war is won._

_\--_

_La Marmora,_

_I obey._

~~

Luigi La Rosa had been a part of the victory parade through Venice. He had never been this far up before,

“Watch out, farm-boy,” hissed a Tuscan volunteersman. “They don’t take kindly to people like you up here.”

He didn’t care, watching the nations up front and marching in constant pursuit of both Naples and Sicily. Sicily’s hair was as short as his was, her head wreathed with roses and smiling sweetly. She was not wearing Sicilian clothes. All were dressed like Northerners, Luigi realized.

He did not know what to make of that.

~~

It had been a few weeks after the claiming of Venice. Serafina and Lovino were back in Naples, packing things to move up north into the house they were all going to settle in. Serafina (and this happened every time she started packing up the bookshelves) was leafing through a novel she’d been given and was laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“Ah, it’s this big book Francis gave me. There’s this fellow named Tholomyès. One of the chapter titles is about how he is so happy he sings badly in Spanish. He asks this girl to kiss her and then kisses another one because he’s too drunk to tell the difference. Reminds me of Antonio.”

Lovino kissed her shoulder, pinching a bit of her skirt and rubbing it casually between his fingers. Her hair had begun to grow back, soft and wooly against his cheek.

“Tell me something.”

“Anything, Pino.”

“Nina, when we move up there, when our contract expires, will you still be mine?”

“We renewed early back in 1860, so we still have some forty years.”

“You’re not answering the question.”

“Why don’t we just answer that question in forty years then, when it matters?”

“Because I want to know now.”

She turned around, hopping up to sit on her desk and pulling her husband close to her again. He gently nudged her legs open to get closer to her, kissing her smiling mouth lightly.

“Say you’re mine, Nina.”

“We have to pack.”

“We’re living near full-time with three single men, one of whom is my brother and the other might as well be. I’m allowed to want to have you the last few days we have alone.”

“ _Lovino._ ”

“Say it,” he purred, kissing down her collarbone while his hands started to roam.

“I—“ Her hips twitched upwards when a hand brushed against somewhere rather intimate. The other reached up to grab hair that wasn’t there and she started laughing at him trying to recover, resulting in him tilting her head back with his hand instead of using her hair as leverage.

“Come on, Nina. Say it.”

She tsked as if she was above mortal affairs like love. Lovino knew her well enough to know she was full of shit. He moved to kneel between her knees.

“I’m yours,” she finally admitted as she felt stubble scrape against the inside of her thigh.

~~

Roderich was not looking up from the cup in front of him and Francis was trying to make this as pleasant as possible for everyone involved.

“You have everything else, Austria. Venice should be with Rome. Brother with brother.”

“Yeah, Roderich,” needled Gilbert. “Brothers belong with brothers, don’t they?”

Francis tutted quietly and Roderich asked if he could leave now. Gilbert asked to leave as well and Francis told him to stay back.

“I do not like what you did at Sadowa, Gilbert,” Francis started evenly, cracking one knuckle absentmindedly.

“Too bad.”

“There was no reason to involve the Bohemians like that.”

“Then maybe Roderich should have gotten the hell out of my way. War has casualties. Do you want to be next?”

Francis’s eyes sparkled. Gilbert’s mouth felt dry.

“No comment.”

~~

Simone had been the one to welcome Feliciano to their new home; when he embraced him Feliciano smelled gunpowder. Simone smelled salt and it made him somehow less anxious.

“How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Feliciano admitted before finally sitting down. “The worst part about going to jail is the whole part where you don’t know exactly what you did to deserve it.”

“If I’d had the option I would have bought your freedom.”

“It wouldn’t have done much, Simone,” sighed Feliciano, reclining on the chaise and reaching for the carafe of water on the end table. “Roderich would have found something else to arrest me for anyway.”

“What was jail like?”

Feliciano looked at his companion closely. His veins stood out, blue under paper white, against his skin. He looked sick.

“Dark. Wait, you’ve never been arrested?”

“Besides that whole period where I got tortured and tied up in my cathedral back in 1848? No, I haven’t. I’ve never seen the inside of a real jail cell.”

“You’re not missing much. The fun part is doing the thing that _gets_ you there.”

Simone got very quiet. Had he ever done something like that? Had he lived at all?

 _No_ , he realized, giving Feliciano’s hand a reassuring squeeze. _He’d done nothing of the sort._

~~

Serafina had taken to sleeping fitfully since they had moved up north, waking up to get sick at strange hours and feeling like her body was coming apart at the seams.

She woke up in a cold sweat, alone. Lovino was somewhere back home for inventory on factories.

She lit a candle and grabbed a mirror. What was it called in that paper she’d read? Jacquemin had written it…

She spread her legs and held up the candle to the mirror to get a clear view. She put down the mirror and candle when her hands began to tremble.

 _Of all times,_ she mused to herself, quietly covering her mouth and curling up on herself. _Of all times_.

~~

Antine was sitting with the king and the generals.

“We still don’t have Rome, even though it’s our capital.”

“That will come with time. Do you really want the Papal States to breathe down our necks, Antine?”

“No. What about Corsica? Can we have Corsica?” The thought of Andria living with him was sounding more and more appealing.

“No, Antine. Do you want the French _and_ the Papal States breathing down our necks?”

“No, sir.”

“Good. We’re done here. Go home, boy. You’ve earned it. I think the Prussian is downstairs in the main hall, if you want to pay your respects before he leaves.”

Antine did not go down to the main hall. He went out the side door to go find a drink. Why did he want to fight, he asked himself. Gilbert gave him the desire to. Gilbert helped him start winning. Bezzecca was because of _him._ He did that.

 _You’re in love with him,_ he realized. He downed his drink and wiped his mouth.

~~

Gilbert didn’t know how to react when the large parcel arrived at his doorstep from “VARGAS E CAPRA E PAVONE E PECORA”

Sausage, wine, and sweets wrapped in dishcloths came out, unfolding more goods like some kind of accordion.

Notes saying _grazie, grazii, grazias,_ and _gràzie assaje_ fell out as well, written completely in dialect. One that he picked up was clearly from Serafina and Lovino. Serafina had been kind enough to write in both Sicilian and French, her left-handed scrawl somewhat smudged and definitely ahead of itself and contrasting with the slightly disordered but rather neat and austere handwriting of her husband. He brushed through other few slips of paper before finally coming across something that he recognized as Antine’s handwriting. He pulled open the envelope to find the check. _Payment for the alliance and the aid,_ Gilbert realized _._

Gilbert ripped up the check and bit off the cork to the wine bottle.

~~

_Nina,_

_I just finished doing some business and I wanted to check in with you: were you the one that asked for all our factories to go up north?_

_I just wanted to clarify before I got mad at someone who didn’t do anything._

_Pino_

Nina went to look under her bed for her small chest to see that it was gone.

~~

Lovino was sitting silently while Serafina and Simone stood in the middle of the room, inches away from the other’s face. He wondered if Simone knew anything about boxing.

“The hell do you mean a _seizure of contraband?_ It’s MINE. Those are MINE.”

“No, they’re ours. If we redivide wealth it will be of no issue.”

“There’s no redivision there; you’re just taking our factories and adding them to yours! Simone, that’s not going to work. You’re only going to make us poorer—“

“It’s not a problem, Sicily,” said Feliciano, getting up to move between them. “You don’t need it, really. We’re all sharing. And even if you get less money, money can’t buy happiness.”

“Spoken like someone who’s never been poor,” Lovino snapped.

Antine finally decided it was time for him to intervene. He was the one with the king, after all.

“Simone, give her back the things you took from her room. Serafina, there’s nothing you can do about the factories.”

“Permission to relocate for a brief period to recollect and figure out what all I need to do?”

“Permission granted, Sicily. I grant that to the rest of you, too. We can’t work together if we aren’t ready to compromise and talk like adults.”

Serafina immediately left, followed by Lovino.

“I can’t believe he’s just going to _let_ that happen,” she growled, pulling open a knapsack and starting to pack again. “I need to—“

“Nina, we’ll just farm a little more.”

She slowed down, glancing down at her feet before looking back up at him.

“We need more than a little, Pino. We need to…we need to do way more. I’m—“

“Look, you’re stressed, you have a right to be. I’m gonna go downstairs. Come talk to me when you’ve calmed down. We’ll figure this out when we go back down south.”

He turned around and her mouth clamped shut, three words stuck in the back of her throat:

_Lovino, I’m pregnant._

~~

Simone didn’t have the time to think about what all he’d done to the Southerners because he had spent the past few hours coughing a handkerchief from white to red.

 _Consumption,_ a doctor had said. _Consumption._

The same illness that had killed his mother. He’d skipped out on getting exposed and immunized once his last inoculation had worn off because he thought it wouldn’t matter.

He’d been wrong. He’d thought he’d had more time.

 _No matter. I’m going back to Milan. I’ll figure something out when I get there_.

~~

Antine was on a boat to Palermo. He’d been in Cagliari but he’d decided it was a good idea to go check on his cousin. Whether she wanted Antine to check on her to begin with was a mystery, but irrelevant.

Antine was thinking about Gilbert. Antine was drinking more and wanting to make it stop.

Roderich would never look at him again, Feliciano had said. Roderich had said something about Antine being dead to him. Roderich had lost his son to a foreign man with glasses and a strange accent, with no money and no prestige besides an old, beehive shaped style of building left behind by his dead father.

Antine had been too much of a coward to go down those stairs, look Gilbert in the eye, say _thank you for your service, officer, you mean the world to me_.

It would never matter anyway. If Antine had learned German to make Roderich love him, Gilbert would have never bothered to learn Sardinian. It would have been a shoddy investment.

Did Gilbert know that Italy was in the process of eating itself alive? It looked to Antine for leadership and he kept shrugging his shoulders. He was a commander in battle, not a politician. He lacked the education.

He was a goatherd, after all.

Worthless.

~~

A dying man drinks prosecco whenever he pleases and eats _panetton_ even when it is far from being Christmas. A dying man goes to his apartment in Milan and relishes in some earthly pleasures before he leaves it for good. 

He was coughing too heavily to even think of smoking a pipe.

~~

Feliciano had taken back to the water, staring off at where he knew Dalmatia was. He’d go back someday. They’d see him again.

~~

“Antine’s coming.”

“I don’t want to look at him right now,” said Serafina before adjusting the band of her skirt. “Not when he agrees with Simone that I’m a _barbarian._ ”

“He didn’t agree, Nina. He just stayed quiet.”

“How is that better?”

“Well…”

“Silence is tacit agreement. I swear to God, Lovino, your complacency will be the death of me.”

“I’m not ‘complacent’.”

“Yes you are. You’re just willing to roll over and let _anything_ happen to you. I don’t even mean in the past twenty years, I mean even before then.”

“What, back when I was the whore of the Spanish Don?”

She stopped. Lovino stretched out his arms, hazel eyes icing over before Nina felt her pulse slow in her veins.

“Back when I was just trying to make sure you stayed alive and I watched you die or come close to it time and time again? That’s even happening now, by the way. I keep telling you to not and you do anyway. I might be complacent, but at least I’m not making everyone around me suffer because I have no concept of my own self-worth. I’m worth fucking nothing, but I don’t take that out on everyone else around me. For someone who’s had so many people die around her, you’d think you’d have more sensitivity to that sort of thing.”

“Lovino.”

“And you keep acting like you’re above everyone and you’re too good to have any emotion other than self-righteousness but you’re setting everyone else on fire while you fly. I was right back when you made that trick shot and I had to pull you out of God’s hands. You’re no Icarus; you’re Phaeton. You think you can handle so much more and then you can’t—“

“ _Stop._ ”

“And all you do is talk about how you’re going to keep rebelling and resisting change because it’s not change that _you_ thought of—“

She got up and walked out of the room.

“No, _get back here_ , I’m not done with you.”

“Yeah, you are. I’m done. I’m leaving.”

“Serafina—“

The door closed and he started pacing around the house, muttering.

“I was right. You’re no better than everyone else.”

Gone, just like everyone else.

~~

Simone Capra had taken his father’s ring off his finger.

How well did he remember his mother?

He remembered playing next to her sickbed and he remembered enough of her white-blond hair and sweet voice to feel sad when he thought of her, he concluded, finishing his glass of wine before turning to look out the window.

His city.

Would they know he had left when he had gone?

He’d known when his father had left. He couldn’t remember when it came to his mother.

“Sorry, Papà.”

~~

Serafina made it maybe five minutes walking through Palermo before she was grabbed by a group of partisans.

“It’s her fault,” one hissed. “Maybe we’d be our own country if she didn’t have her mouth stuffed full of Continental cock—“

“Look at her, they cut her hair off. She looks like a boy now. Think they were trying to turn her into a pederast?”

“If it weren’t for her, the fucking Northerners wouldn’t have taken everything. We’re all starving because of her.”

“She said in a speech when I was a volunteer that she spent her winters in Schönbrunn and her summers in Versailles,” said Luigi La Rosa, who was trying to get them to stop roughing her up.

“Ha! See, she doesn’t represent us anymore. She’s too old.”

“If you feel that way, then kill me,” she dared, gold eyes staring directly into Luigi’s soul.

“You’ve got a pistol, right, Luigi?” asked one of his companions. His hands found the handle and he gulped before finally leveling the gun against her throat.

“Do what you have to do, Luigi,” she said with a sad smile.

~~

Lovino stopped his rambling to run and go find his wife.

_Fuck, I’m sorry, you’re right, or…maybe not right but I was wrong to say all of those things—_

He found her kneeling on a street corner, held down by two men while another pointed a pistol at her throat. Her head turned slightly, eyes widening in recognition but not opening her mouth to call out to him. He went from walking quickly to running.

Luigi's finger curled around the trigger. 

~~

Simone was reclined on his window-seat, a high-class Violetta with his bloody handkerchief and bluing skin.

He grabbed the pistol down by the finished bottle of wine and slid the barrel into his mouth in a smooth, mechanic motion. His hands were not shaking.

He was going to be with his family.

~~

Antine finished his glass of whiskey as he looked over the bow of the ship into the water.

You should jump,said a voice in his head. No one wants you around.

The voice was right.

~~

_Bang._


End file.
